Scarborough sex offender Joseph Bailey breached bail conditions, including using an alias to join dating site

Joseph Bailey, 23, from Scarborough, stayed at a woman’s house in the North East after scouring a dating site.

He was subject to notification requirements at the time which meant he had to alert police and probation officers to any change in his whereabouts, prosecutor Jonathan Sharp told York Crown Court.

But Bailey ignored this injunction and stayed at the property over two weekends in June and July this year, when the woman’s young daughter was present. He had previously contravened the order by using an alias on the dating website without informing the authorities.

Bailey was arrested and charged with three counts of failing to comply with notification requirements as a registered sex offender. He admitted all three charges and appeared for sentence via video link on Thursday after being recalled to Hull Prison.

Mr Sharp said Bailey’s offences were just the “latest in a series of failing to comply with notification (requirements)” since he received a 12-month suspended prison sentence for sexual activity with an under-age girl in January 2019, when a judge also placed him on the sex-offenders’ register for seven years.

Bailey, who met the girl on Facebook, breached the order within a few months and was summoned to appear before York Crown Court but failed to turn up, prompting police to issue a ‘wanted’ appeal after Bailey vanished from his then home in Scarborough.

He was finally tracked down to an address in Sheffield and brought back before the court in March 2019 when he was jailed for 18 months for the breach and other “mean” offences committed in late 2018 including theft from a dwelling, disclosing private sexual photos with intent to cause distress, five counts of fraud and breaching the suspended sentence.

In November 2018, Bailey uploaded a raunchy photo of a scantily-clad young woman on Facebook, fleeced another female in a social-media blag and went on a spending spree with a credit card he had stolen from a stranger he met on a night out.

Bailey sent the risqué photo out to several of the victim’s contacts, promising to send out more raunchy snaps “if monies were paid”.

The day after he was bailed for those offences, Bailey – who had been bunking in hostels and hotels on the east coast - ended up at a couple’s home in Sheffield who offered to put him up for the night after meeting in a bar.

The following morning, the victim and his girlfriend woke to find his £140 watch missing, along with his credit card which Bailey used to buy drinks and burgers at pubs and a fast-food outlet in the city centre.

Bailey - formerly of Auborough Street, Scarborough, but currently of no fixed address - served half his sentence behind bars and was released on licence in February this year. By May, he had signed up to a dating site using an alias, without informing the authorities.

“He made contact with a lady in Durham who had a (young) daughter,” said Mr Sharp.

“He stayed overnight with that lady - with the daughter present - on two occasions, between June 26 and 28, and July 3 and 6.”

Bailey - said to be a well-educated, “bright young man” whose life had gone downhill due to a drink problem - had used the alias because he didn’t want the woman to know about his convictions for sex offences, added the prosecutor.

Bailey’s family told his probation officer that he had left his registered address and was “somewhere in Sheffield”.

A warrant was issued for Bailey’s arrest but, despite his making “numerous promises to hand himself in”, he remained at large for three weeks, until his arrest on August 26.

Defence barrister Felicity Hemlin said Bailey had sought out the affections of the woman he met online after the collapse of his five-year relationship with his former girlfriend, after which he moved back in with his parents in Selby while commuting to work in Sheffield.

Jailing Bailey for six months, Recorder Margia Mostafa said an immediate prison sentence was the only option for such flagrant breaches of the notification requirements.