A CONVICTED sex offender fled from vigilantes in the south of England and moved to Pembroke Dock without telling the police.

Steven John Clements was required to notify the authorities of where he was living but disappeared off the radar in March – only to be arrested for shoplifting in Pembrokeshire six months later.

Swansea Crown Court heard it was not known how long he had been living in Wales for prior to his arrest.

Clements was jailed at Liverpool Crown Court in 2000 for six counts of indecent assault on boys aged nine, 10, and 13 and put on the sex offenders' register.

He was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order to limit his access to children.

Hannah George, prosecuting, told the court that in February this year Clements was living in Plymouth.

When officers called at the address they had listed for him they were told he had recently left.

The last contact police had with Clements was on March 15 when he registered with them as being of ‘no fixed abode’.

He then disappeared and did not register any permanent address with police, which he was required to do.

The court heard that on September 12 a man was arrested for stealing a laptop from Pembroke Dock’s Tesco store on London Road.

He initially gave a false name, but, when his fingerprints were checked, the shoplifter turned out to be Clements.

Clements, aged 40, of London Road, Pembroke Dock, admitted failing to comply with notification requirements and to theft from a shop.

The court heard he has 15 previous convictions for 32 offences, eight of which are for sexual offences, as well as four breaches of his sexual offences prevention order.

Miss George told the court one of his breaches involved having contact with children aged seven and 13.

He had inadvertently rung a police officer on his mobile phone while with the youngsters and left a 14-minute answerphone message which recorded his meeting.

Dan Griffiths, defending, accepted his client's failure to notify the police of his whereabouts had been a "persistent and lengthy" breach of the order.

He said Clements had been forced to flee Plymouth after details of his sexual offending began to circulate on social media, and he became the subject of "almost daily threats" as well as of an actual assault.

Clements went to Exmouth and then Exeter before moving to live with friends in Pembroke Dock.

Judge Keith Thomas sentenced Clements to 20 months in prison for breaching the sexual harm prevention order and two months for the shoplifting.

The judge revoked the existing order and imposed a sexual harm prevention order to run for 10 years.