A Malton pensioner was due to be sentenced for a string of sexual offences against young girls – but the case was adjourned because he was thought to be in Benidorm.
Kenneth Hinds, 75, was convicted of nine counts of sexual assault following a trial at Hull Crown Court in February.
He was due to be sentenced on Friday, but prosecutor Michael Masson said there was no pre-sentence report available because Hinds had not seen the Probation Service and was believed to be abroad.
Police enquiries revealed the pensioner was thought to be on the Costa Blanca but, as yet, there was no evidence he had booked return tickets from the popular holiday destination.
Mr Masson said that the victims in the case had attended court for Hinds’s sentence.
He said that police had been to the pensioner’s home in Malton, but he was nowhere to be seen. He asked Mr Recorder Thomas Moran to issue an arrest warrant not backed for bail.
Defence barrister Matthew Moore-Taylor said he had “scant information” about Hinds’s whereabouts and why he had not turned up for his probation report and sentence.
He said he had made his instructing solicitors aware that there was a “nil (pre-sentence) report” and they had made their own attempts to contact Hinds, but to no avail.
“They have been unable to contact him via email,” added Mr Moore-Taylor.
“They sent letters and the phone number they have for him was going straight to voicemail.”
He added: “I learned today of the possibility that the defendant is not in the country and may be in Spain.
“The OIC (officer in charge of the case) has already started these enquiries. These enquiries will continue to locate Mr Hinds.”
Hinds, of Ashfield Avenue, was convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse against two young girls following the trial last month.
He was charged with nine counts of sexually assaulting a girl under 16 years of age and after a three-day trial was found guilty of all offences.
Following the unanimous guilty verdicts, he was given conditional bail before sentence, which was due to be today, but Hinds appears to have left the country.
Mr Recorder Moran said: “The fact that Hinds’s non-attendance has caused additional distress to the victims will reflect in a consecutive sentence for skipping bail in addition to the sentence he is going to receive for the sexual offences.”
He issued a warrant for the pensioner’s arrest which would see Hinds brought straight into custody upon his arrest. Detective Constable Stephen Bromby, of Humberside Police’s Protecting Vulnerable People Unit, described Hinds’s crimes as “despicable sexual deviancy”.