A SEX offender slipped the net after failing to be deported against the wishes of a judge, a court was told.

Roukan Hussein, who now lives in Middlesbrough, was convicted of a sex assault at Grimsby Crown Court in 2004 and jailed.

Upon his release he was required to register his whereabouts with police but failed to do so until March 2009.

Prosecutor Jenny Haigh told Teesside Crown Court that the authorities wrongly understood he had been deported following a recommendation by the judge in the case.

Hussein, 36, of Clarendon Road, Middlesbrough, had since been able to remain in the country and had registered six changes of address.

However he had been late to do so on four occasions and as such admitted four counts of failing to comply with his notification requirements.

Hussein, who required an interpreter for his sentencing hearing, had been placed on the sex offenders register for ten years following his conviction for sexual assault, but that lapsed last month.

On one occasion when quizzed by police he refused to give details of where he was living. He also said he had been homeless.

Judge Howard Crowson said: “The notification requirements are necessary and help us to provide protection to the public.

“When they are breached prison sentences follow.”

Judge Crowson gave Hussein a four month prison sentence, matching the length of time he had already spent on remand in custody.

He said: “You may therefore be released very soon.”