A CONVICTED sex offender who has flouted court orders preventing him from being with children more than a dozen times was tonight back behind bars.

Michael Sharpe was in a house with seven children - the youngest aged only two - just two months after being released from a four-year jail sentence for similar breaches.

The Northern Echo:

Michael Sharpe

Sharpe, 50, was jailed in 2004 for indecent assault when he drove a teenage girl to Hurworth Burn reservoir, near Wingate, County Durham, and abused her.

A Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) was imposed following the balding pervert's conviction - but he has now since breached it 15 times in the last six years.

In 2007, he flouted the order three times, and in 2009, he received a 30-month sentence for allowing children into his home and not telling parents of his past.

In April 2011, he was given four years having sex with a homeless 17-year-old at his home in Thornaby, Stockton, and spending time with children she was babysitting.

After being freed in March this year, Sharpe went to the home of a former prison cell-mate where a woman had her four children and three grandchildren.

Sharpe did not tell the grandmother about his perverted past, but maintains he informed his friend why he had been in prison and the prohibitions he was under.

Teesside Crown Court heard that he felt unable to tell the woman he could not be there, but left the house as soon as he finished a cup of tea he had been offered.

Prosecutor Sue Jacobs told the court that he returned to the house on each of the following two days, but never entered - going only to drop off items and collect money.

Julian Gaskin, mitigating, urged Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, to consider a suspended prison sentence because Sharpe is already under strict supervision.

The judge told Sharpe: "I cannot agree with those submissions . . . you knew precisely what was meant by that order, because you had repeatedly breached it.

"Within months of your release, you breached it again . . . you did not leave as soon as you realised there were children there and you went back on two occasions."

Sharpe, whose most recent address was in Dorothy Street, Middlesbrough, pleaded guilty to three breaches of the SOPO, and was locked up for 12 months.