Sex offender Paul Robson given more jail time after escape from Boston prison

A convicted sex offender who left a "makeshift dummy" in his cell bed before escaping from an open prison on a bicycle has been given more jail time.

Paul Robson, who was described as a "particular danger" to women and children, sparked a major manhunt when he fled HMP North Sea Camp in Boston, Lincolnshire, on 13 February.

He was arrested in Skegness four days later.

Appearing at Lincoln Crown Court today, Robson, 56, pleaded guilty to escape.

The court heard that he climbed out of his cell window at night after making a makeshift dummy to "mislead the prison authorities".

He took a Prison Service bicycle and rode away. His disappearance was only discovered the following morning.

Stefan Fox, prosecuting, said: "Underneath his duvet was a collection of items that was arranged in a way to give the impression his bed was occupied."

Robson, who had 17 previous convictions, was serving a life sentence after breaking into a 23-year-old woman's house in Oxford through a cat flap and sexually assaulting her at knifepoint.

He had only been in the Boston prison for a matter of weeks and his escape prompted questions about why he was being held in open conditions, with one MP branding it a "failure of the system".

After his arrest he told police he was a practising Buddhist and had fled the prison because it was a "s***hole" and he wanted to move back to a closed prison, where he had been allowed to "meditate" and do artwork.

He was unhappy with his cell mate at Boston, who he complained spent his whole time "playing X Box games" and went to Skegness because he wanted to be by the sea, having grown up in Morecambe.

Judge Simon Hirst gave Robson a sentence of eight months imprisonment.