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A mum who was "into incest" and tried to sell her two-year-old daughter for sex has been jailed for 40 years.

Sarah Peters, 25, took her daughter to meet a man she thought was wiling to pay $1,200(£900) to "engage in sexual acts" with the little girl.

Thankfully, instead of a pervert paedophile, the man was a police detective in Texas.

Court documents say she also sent him nude photographs of the toddler to try and seal the deal.

A court was told Sarah Peters, then 24, took her very young daughter from Houston, 40 miles north to Conroe, in February, having made the deal over texts.

The man she met online would pay her a fee of $1,200 (£900), said Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon.

He would then be allowed to “engage in sex acts with the child”, said the DA.

The arrangements were made and the mother travelled to the meeting place to be greeted not by a sicko, but actually Detective Jerry Serratt, who was working with an area-wide law enforcement task force that focused on internet crimes against children.

The task force’s investigation into Peters, now 25, began when officers were tipped off about a mother who was “into incest,” according to the Houston Chronicle.

During Serratt’s initial exchange with Peters, she sent him messages asking if he knew “of any guys that would pay to have fun” with a child of just two years, according to court documents obtained by the Conroe Courier.

The deranged mother also sent nude photos of her own daughter to further entice the man she thought she was negotiating with, the court documents allege.

Task force officers, and special agents with the Department of Homeland Security, arrested Peters at a local Greyhound bus station.

Child Protective Services took custody of her daughter after she it emerged she really did have the child in tow and was willing to go through with it.

Peters was booked into the Montgomery County Jail on February 22, according to jail records, and charged with sexual performance by a child, prostitution of a child and trafficking a child.

She pleaded guilty Thursday to the crimes, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison for trying to sell her daughter for sex.

“The events of this case are hard to believe — that a mother would willingly expose her own daughter to this type of danger,” prosecutor Tyler Dunman said.

“Our citizens must realize that this type of activity happens in our community.”

Peters will be eligible for parole in 2038.