A CONVICTED sex offender who went on holiday without informing the police has escaped a jail sentence.

Terence White, of Avon Road, Worcester, wants to move abroad and went to Turkey to look for property to buy.

However, the 67-year-old - who in 2005 was given a community order for committing a sex offence 10 years previously - did not tell police, which is in breach of the sex offenders register regulations.

At Worcester Magistrates Court on Thursday, Andy Childs, defending, argued that the Probation Service's pre-sentence report was "not justified" in saying White's crime had crossed the custody threshold.

Mr Childs said: "It is making far too much of what my client has done. He has kept the appointments, he has kept to the various courses and he has not offended since the making of that crown court order."

The court heard how White went to Turkey with his niece in August last year and put a deposit down on a small cottage in a quiet fishing village.

Mr Childs said: "There is no reason on earth why this man cannot make those plans. There is nothing stopping him going abroad, but he should have notified the police."

Referring to another case, in which a convicted rapist deliberately went "underground" for some time, Mr Childs said White was at the opposite end of the scale.

"There is no victim of this crime," he said.

Mark Soper, prosecuting, urged the bench to follow the report's recommendation.

Magistrates told White he had a "lax attitude" to parts of his order and his trip to Turkey was not his first failure to comply with the conditions imposed on him.

They sentenced him to a 12-month community order, told him to pay £43 court costs and also asked that there was a more intense involvment with the Probation Service.