A SEX offender who abducted an under- age girl only days after magistrates cleared him of committing a sexual offence with her, has been jailed.

Police served Liam Hawes, 19, with a formal order to have no contact at all with the 15-year-old girl in August. He has a history of sexual offences and had just been found in bed with her apparently engaging in sexual activity, York Crown Court heard.

He was held in custody until his trial on October 6, when he told magistrates he did not know she was under age and they acquitted him of any crime.

Liam O’Brien, prosecuting, said on October 19, police found him with the girl staying at his aunt’s in Castleford.

She had been missing for two days. He had told his relative she was 17 and concealed her real name.

Hawes was given an 18-month detention and training order in 2012 for false imprisonment when he grabbed a young woman in Selby, ran up behind her and pulled a hood over her head, but she managed to free herself.

On that occasion, magistrates declined a prosecution bid to make him wear a GPS tag continually for the next five years so police would always know where he was.

He had also committed five sexual offences against girls in 2009 and the first sexual allegation against him was made when he was 11.

“You have got an exceptionally troubling record,” the Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, told him.

“There are clearly problems in your make-up with the relationships you form with young girls. I do not know what is behind your behaviour.”

Hawes, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to abduction and was jailed for 30 months.

Mitigating, Michael Greenhalgh said Hawes knew he had to keep away from the 15-year-old. He planned to move away from York when he was released from prison and make a new start in Scarborough. He was young enough to change and put his criminal behaviour behind him.

The police order served on Hawes gave a series of prohibitions including sleeping or staying in the same property as the girl.