Paul Robson found: sex offender arrested in Skegness after Lincolnshire open prison escape from North Sea Camp

A ‘dangerous’ sex offender who escaped from an open prison in Lincolnshire earlier this week has been arrested.

Paul Robson, 56, absconded from HMP North Sea Camp, near Boston, at around 7am on Sunday (13 February).

His escape sparked a major manhunt, with police describing the 56 year-old as a “particular danger to women and young children”.

Who is Paul Robson?

Newcastle-born Robson, 56, was jailed at Oxford Crown Court in 2000 after he entered a woman’s home through a cat flap before subjecting her to a series of attacks.

He tied his victim up, put a pillowcase over her head and brutally assaulted her while holding a knife to her throat.

He had only been released from prison three weeks before the attack and was on licence.

The 56 year old already had a long history of violent sex attacks on women and young girls, with the sentencing judge at Oxford Crown Court describing him as a “menace to females”.

He is currently serving a life sentence for attempted rape and indecent assult.

The jail he escaped from is a category D men’s open prison which holds a large proportion of sex offenders and those serving indeterminate sentences, according to an inspector’s report following a scrutiny visit in April last year.

The report, published in June, said 70% of prisoners were assessed as “presenting a high risk of harm to others” and more than half were convicted of sex offences.

What have police said?

Lincolnshire Police said Robson was found and arrested in the Skegness area of the county at 9.27am on Thursday (17 February) and remains in police custody.

The force’s East Area Commander, Chief Superintendent Kate Anderson said: “We are pleased to report that we have arrested Paul Robson.

“We are grateful to members of the public for their help and support in sharing our appeals, and we’d also like to give thanks to everyone who have called in with potential sightings of him.

“We’d also like to extend our thanks to partner agencies and our officers for working tirelessly to apprehend Robson.”

Police had issued three images of Mr Robson, who is serving an indeterminate sentence imposed at Oxford Crown Court in 2000.

It is understood that he will be returned to a closed prison and will not be eligible for parole for at least a further two years.

Where is HMP North Sea Camp?

HMP North Sea Camp is a men's open prison located on the edge of the parish of Freiston, near Boston, Lincolnshire.

What is an open prison?

When someone is sent to prison for a crime, they are not always banged up behind bars.

Open prisons - known as category D jails - are institutions where criminals complete their sentences with minimal supervision.

They are trusted to adhere to the conditions of their sentencing with little perimeter security and aren’t locked up in their cells all day.

Employment while serving their sentence is also permitted in attempts to rehabilitate prisoners rather than to punish them.

Open prison inmates can be serving time for the most heinous of crimes, including rape, murder and robbery.

These can include life sentences if a parole board finds that they are not a danger to the public or likely to abscond.

A message from the editor:

Thank you for reading. NationalWorld is a new national news brand, produced by a team of journalists, editors, video producers and designers who live and work across the UK. Find out more about who’s who in the team, and our editorial values. We want to start a community among our readers, so please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and keep the conversation going. You can also sign up to our newsletters and get a curated selection of our best reads to your inbox every day.