A prolific sex offender who had unsupervised contacted with a teenage boy at Accrington Flea Market has been jailed for two years.

Paul Emsley was previously given a lifetime sexual offences prevention order (SOPO) order banning him from having unsupervised contact with any male under the age of 16.

However the 49-year-old was caught in breach of the order when he was observed communicating with a teenage boy at Accrington Flea Market, handing him cigarettes and allowing him to ride his bike, Burnley Crown Court heard.

When interviewed by police he admitted meeting the victim ‘on a fleeting basis’.

Emsley, of Hood Street, Accrington, was also caught in breach of his notification requirements after failing to inform police that he had been staying on occasions at another address with another sex offender.

He pleaded guilty to breaching a sexual offences prevention order and failing to comply with sex offender notification requirements and was jailed for two years.

Paul Brookwell, prosecuting, told the court how Emsley has a ‘large number of offences relating to sexual offences’ including indecent assaults and possessing indecent photos.

The prosecutor said he met another sex offender while staying at Highfield Probation Hostel and started staying at his home and ‘moved in an amount of his property’.

Simon Mintz, defending, said Emsley has a ‘bad record’ but they are ‘not the worst breaches’ of a SOPO. He said: “The contact was in a very busy place place, Accrington market, and there is no suggestion of anything sinister in the contact itself. He has not taken him to a private place.”

“He wasn’t living there (at the other address). He stayed there for more than seven days in a 12-month period. He spent the night there too often.”

Judge Beverley Lunt said Emsley had a ‘dreadful record’ for breaching SOPOs.

Sentencing, she said: “The message is not getting through to you. The order is there to protect vulnerable young men who come across your path like this young man did and the onus is on you to obey the order. If you don’t you are going to go back to prison.

“I’m satisfied the message can only get through to you and the public to be protected by longer and longer sentences.”