A CONVICTED sex offender who panicked and left his West Yorkshire flat after he was threatened and called a nonce has been spared an immediate prison sentence for failing to register his new address with the police.

Dominic Fella, 32, committed the offences when he was a boy but he was given an indefinite order to tell the police within three days if he had moved home, Bradford Crown Court heard today.

Prosecutor Lydia Pearce said he left his address in the Halifax area and moved to Preston in September. He changed his hair colour but was tracked down by the police and arrested on November 7 and remanded in HMP Leeds.

He pleaded guilty to breach of the notification requirements and was today sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months.

Fella’s barrister, Adrian Pollard, said the indefinite order had impacted on the defendant’s mental health.

He had started to receive threats at his previous address and he was labelled ‘a nonce.’ He left out of panic because he and his pregnant partner were afraid of what would happen to them.

Judge Jonathan Gibson said Fella left the flat against a background of threats and with many years of compliance with the order.

He had spent 21 days in custody and the stand-alone sentence would give him the opportunity to ensure he stuck to the conditions of the order in the future.