A CONVICTED rapist who has now flouted the sexual offenders’ register for the sixth time has been jailed for 14 months.

Alcoholic Frank Doherty, 60, who first committed a sex offence 36 years ago, is on the register for life.

He is supposed to tell the police where he is living and notify them once a week if he has no fixed address.

But, he has repeatedly failed to co-operate and didn't inform them of his whereabouts for several weeks when he had come out of jail and had no fixed place to live.

He was arrested and app-eared in court.

Doherty was then bailed to a house in Haslingden, but didn’t go to the police station and weeks later wasn’t living where he should have been, Burnley Crown Court heard.

The hearing was told Doherty was given a three- year extended sentence for two sexual assaults in May 2005. In February, he was locked up for 24 weeks, for not complying with the notification requirements.

Doherty, recently living at Laburnum Street, Haslingden, admitted failing to comply with the sex offenders register between April 6 and June 1 and between July 9 and 18 and breaching bail.

The court was told Doherty was released from prison on around April 6 and had no fixed address.He had gone to the police station, but did not ‘sign on’ at any point and officers spent a considerable amount of hours looking for him.

He was arrested and interviewed on June 2. Doherty said he did go to Accrington Police Station and tell them he had been released, but he did not reattend.

The defendant appeared before Pennine magistrates on June 2, was bailed to Laburnum Street, but didn’t go to the police station. He was arrested and released and then left the address he had been ordered to stay at. He was again arrested on July 18 and refused to speak in police interview.

The defendant has 49 offences on his record, was first sentenced for a sexual offence in 1978 and in 1985 was convicted of rape.

Judge Beverley Lunt told Doherty: “You have got to start to taking this seriously. It’s a very serious requirement, you are just flouting this requirement. Police need to know where you are. It’s a statutory requirement.”