JAKARTA ~ A court has convicted an Australian man of pedophilia and jailed him for 10 years for having sex with more than 50 teenage boys.

The court also ordered Peter Smith, 48, to pay a fine of Rp75 million (US$8,255) or face an extra three months in jail.

The judge said on Monday that the defendant had admitted, and witnesses had confirmed, that Smith had lured children as young as 14 to his home and performed sex acts on them. Smith recorded some of the encounters on video.

Smith, an English teacher who also holds a British passport, was arrested in his rented house in Jakarta in August last year after police received reports from two children.

The children said they were paid Rp40,000 each time Smith had sex with them and an additional Rp10,000 if he videotaped them.

Indonesia is increasingly being used as a haven by foreign pedophiles and child sex networks.

A former Australian diplomat hanged himself in his cell in 2004 after he was jailed for 13 years on child sex offences.