January 2020 Repeat sex offender back behind bars A man who has been jailed after admitting three serious sexual offences has served a previous prison sentence for indecency with a girl, a court heard. Kurt Lawrence Joseph was made subject of lifetime registration as a sex offender for the previous conviction, in 2014, for which he received a four-year prison sentence. Durham Crown Court was told that he came to police attention again in May last year when a woman flagged down a passing bus claiming she had been sexually assaulted by him Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, said Joseph had sexual relations with the victim in an alleyway in Newcastle two months earlier and that matter was being investigated by the Northumbria force when the allegations arose in the Durham Police area in May. Mr Dodds said between the two sets of incidents the police public protection unit contacted Joseph as he had been evicted from an address in Newcastle but was without a fixed address for registration purposes. Following the May incidents Joseph made denials, but forensic evidence linked him to the injured party. The 25-year-old defendant, of no fixed abode, who has been in custody since the allegations arose last May, admitted three serious sexual offences. Imposing a one-year determinate sentence, to be followed by a one-year extended period of supervision, Recorder Darren Preston said he considers Joseph poses a risk of causing serious harm in future by way of sexual offending. He also made him subject of Sexual Harm Prevention Order for five years.