A PAEDOPHILE who went on the run for six months after escaping from police officers coming to arrest him has been caught and jailed.

Robert Devney, 48, formerly of Fisher Close, Newport, jumped out of a first floor window of a house in the city, prosecutor Lowri Wynn Morgan said.

She told how the fugitive was at large after fleeing the law last summer before he was found last month.

Devney was arrested hiding at a friend’s house in Newport’s Shaftesbury Walk.

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Cardiff Crown Court heard how the defendant was jailed for 10 years in 2004 for the rape of a child.

The conviction however was overturned on appeal and he was sentenced to a prison term of 30 months for having intercourse with a girl under the age of 16.

He also had to register as a sex offender.

Miss Wynn Morgan said officers had gone to arrest Devney last August on suspicion of committing a burglary.

He was living at an address he had not given to the police and this meant he failed to comply with sex offender register notification requirements.

The defendant pleaded guilty to this offence and to resisting a constable.

Devney has 25 previous convictions for 73 offences, including robbery, racially aggravated assault occasioning actual bodily harm and escaping from custody.

This latest offence was his sixth failure to comply with sex offender notification requirements.

Scott Bowen, mitigating, said of his client: “He was being arrested for a burglary he did not commit.

“The defendant panicked and ran.”

He asked for the court to give Devney the appropriate credit for his guilty pleas.

Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke told the defendant: “You have persistently breached sex offender notification requirements.

“They are put in place to protect the public.”

She jailed him for 16 months and ordered him to pay a victim surcharge after his release from prison.