Convicted sex offender jailed after lying to police about his address

Christopher Charles Clarke, 39, who was required to tell police his current address after being placed on the Sex Offenders Register, claimed he was sleeping rough on land at Cow Pastures in Louth.

But officers became suspicious of him because of his appearance.

Edna Leonard, prosecuting, said: “He didn’t have the appearance of someone who was sleeping rough.

“On October 16 he went to the police station and his risk manager asked him to show him where he was sleeping.

“The defendant took him to Cow Pastures. When they arrived, the defendant initially said they were at the wrong location.

“Then he came clean and said he had been living with his partner at an address in Ludgate in Louth. He said he had lived there since 2018.”

Clarke, 39, currently of no fixed address but who had been staying in Ludgate, Louth, admitted charges of failing to comply with the sex offender notification requirements and with supplying false information.

He was jailed for four months and the time he is on the Sex Offenders Register was increased to seven years.

Judge Catarina Sjolin Knight told him: “You were taking the Mickey out of the whole system and ignoring what you were told you had to do.”

The court was told that Clarke was originally placed on the Sex Offenders Register after appearing at the Crown Court on October 9 this year, when he was sentenced for a charge of attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity.

Sunil Khanna, for Clarke, said the defendant ended up asking his partner to let him stay at her house because he had nowhere else to go.

“He accepts his actions were unjustified. This wasn’t a case of him disappearing off the face of the earth.”