A CONVICTED paedophile who kept his catalogue of crimes secret from a family he befriended has been warned not to develop relationships with children after being caught with a 14-year-old boy in his car.

Northallerton Magistrates Court heard North Yorkshire Police stopped a car being driven by Terence McCarthy outside a village near Thirsk at 3pm on Sunday, November 16, after receiving a tip-off.

Officers found the supermarket warehouse worker with the boy in the back seat and in the passenger seat, the teenager's grandmother, who was unaware of McCarthy's past.

McCarthy, a grandfather, had been banned seven years before from having contact with children if he had not told their guardians about his offences, after admitting befriending a family and committing a string of sexual offences involving an nine-year-old girl and a teenage boy.

Sentencing McCarthy to three-and-a-half years' jail in 2007, a York Crown Court judge said the offences represented a severe breach of trust, after hearing his victims had developed behavioural and stress-related problems during the abuse.

Magistrates heard after being released from jail, McCarthy had maintained a relationship with a prisoner who had been convicted of similar offences, which had led to him taking the teenager to a sports club and on numerous lorry-spotting day trips.

Hilary Reece, prosecuting, said there had always been another adult in the car with McCarthy on the trips and the 63-year-old had immediately admitted to breaching his sexual offences prevention order when confronted by police.

She said: "The grandmother was shocked when she was stopped and told what the situation was."

In mitigation, Helen Sabiston said McCarthy had assumed the boy's grandmother knew some details about his convictions and had become too embarrassed to inform them as their relationship developed and had failed to inform his supervising officer about the day trips.

She said: "He [McCarthy] said there was no sexual intention on his part – he was merely doing the family a favour, but he can understand why there would be concerns about that level of contact."

Magistrate Jo Senior sentenced McCarthy, of New Millgate, Selby, to a 12-month community order, with three months' supervision and 100 hours' unpaid work.

She said: "The whole reason for making a [sexual offences prevention] order is to make it clear to you that you can't be contact with people under 16.

"Breaking it is not an option."