A SEX offender is back behind bars after he shoved a police officer who was trying to apprehend him and ran off.

Benjamin Kym Middlemiss had been released from prison on parole and was attending his work at a supermarket as he was required to do, said Rob Galley, prosecuting at York Crown Court.

However, an “administrative error” led those supervising Middlemiss to believe he was not attending the York job and he was recalled to prison to serve the rest of his nine-year sentence for sex offences, the court heard.

But when a police officer spotted him in Clifton Moorgate on December 15 and tried to take him off to jail, he shoved her backwards and ran off.

It was seven days before he was arrested, at South View Probation Hostel in Boroughbridge Road, York, where he was required to live under his parole conditions.

His barrister Alex Menary said: “He panicked because he thought he had been doing nothing wrong. He was going to work, he was making good progress.

“He anticipated it would be a lot harder to sort it out if he was in custody.”

During the time he was unlawfully at large, the authorities realised he had been attending work.

Mr Menary said Middlemiss, who spent Christmas back behind bars, will be there until 2023 unless he could get parole again.

Middlemiss, 25, formerly of Oxcroft, Kirkbymoorside, near Pickering, pleaded guilty to escaping from lawful custody and the non-imprisonable offence of driving on a provisional licence without a supervisor.

Judge Andrew Stubbs QC told him: “There was some kind of administrative error which led to you being recalled on your (prison) licence. The investigation into that concluded that, as well as you were doing, you were still committing offences.

“You were doing everything expected of you when released from custody. You were doing everything expected of you to get your life back on track.”

He jailed him for six months.

Mr Menary said Middlemiss had only driven the car out of the hostel car park 250 yards along Boroughbridge Road to pick up his uncle who was going to supervise him.