A convicted Welsh sex offender who had been on the run in Ireland for almost three years has been jailed today for nine months.
Eric Peachey (56) from Aberystwyth skipped bail and fled to Ireland after he was convicted of three offences of sexual assault on a boy of nine in May 2002.
He had stayed in hostels in Ireland but eventually made himself known to the gardaí, admitting he was a convicted a convicted sex offender.
"He was frightened at the prospect of a prison sentence and being a convicted sex offender in the prison regime," Mr Huw Rees QC for Peachey told Swansea Crown Court today.
Mr Rees said that while in prison in Dublin last December, Peachey had suffered a heart attack.
Swansea Crown Court heard today that Peachey had spent almost 19 months in jail in Ireland, largely because he fought extradition.
Passing sentence, Judge John Diehl QC said the probation service had originally recommended ordering Peachey to follow a three-year sex offenders' group programme. But his actions had now made a custodial sentence inevitable.
He was jailed for nine months, banned from working with children for life and would have to liaise closely with the probation service for three years as part of a programme to oversee his behaviour upon his release. His name would also go on the Sex Offenders' Register for 10 years.
PA