A SEX menace who twice evaded police surveillance by going on the run has narrowly escaped an immediate trip to jail.

Steven Kevin Scrivener, 25, also ducked out of a compulsory sex offenders' rehabilitation programme aimed at ending his attacks on young women.

He cried in the dock at York Crown Court at the thought of returning to jail and told Recorder Gary Burrell QC that, before the morning hearing he "had just a little drink, to calm my nerves, because I was scared of being here".

He has already served 30 months for raping and indecently assaulting two schoolgirls in Strensall and was on a probation order for molesting a shopworker in Market Weighton.

"He is just not coming to terms with the fact that he has a sexual problem," the judge said.

He gave Scrivener a 12-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months on condition he does the programme.

The judge told him: "You put barriers in the way because you simply don't want to take this programme and your lack of determination is confirmed by your unwillingness to comply with the notification requirements (of the sex offenders' register)."

Scrivener, of Tudor Road, Acomb, York, is on the register for life because of the Strensall sex attacks.

He pleaded guilty to failing to tell police he had left his parents' home on April 6, failure to do the probation order including the rehabilitation programme, imposed for the Market Weighton attack, and deception.

Prosecutor David Garner said Scrivener used his father's bank account illegally to buy two mobile phones worth £300.

He had a previous conviction for failing to tell police of a change of address in 2001, shortly after he was released from the 30-month jail term.

Scrivener's barrister, Geraldine Kelly, said her client put his head in the sand and started drinking instead of getting new accommodation when his parents told him they were moving house and he could not live at their new home. He bought and sold the phones to raise cash.

The court was told after he had to leave the family home, Scrivener did not want to go to probation because they would find out he had not told police where he was.

But since his arrest, he had attended probation appointments.

The court heard he now had a stable address and a job.