A BURNLEY shop boss who sexually attacked a teenager and then went on the run for four-and-a-half years is behind bars.

The town's crown court was told how Wazir Khan, now 67, denied molesting the 17 year old in the secluded yard behind the family-run discount shop.

But he fled to Pakistan after being convicted by a jury and facing a jail sentence.

Khan, who went to live with his first wife and still protests his innocence, returned to the UK in January, handed himself in and was remanded in custody.

Khan, now said to be in poor health with diabetes, kidney and heart problems, was convicted of sexual assault in 2006 and then failing to surrender. The defendant, of Hurtley Street, was jailed for 18 months. He had no previous convictions.

Sentencing him, Judge Beverley Lunt said he had taken advantage of the victim in the worst possible way. The judge said the girl had been ‘patently honest’ when she gave evidence and the jury ‘quite properly and quite rightly’ found him guilty.

Judge Lunt said she had granted Khan bail for a pre-sentence report, but he had then run away to avoid his punishment and had known exactly what he was doing.

She said: "Four and a half years is a long time to have deliberately evaded justice."

Khan will be on the sex offenders' register for 10 years. He was made subject to an indefinite sexual offences prevention order, to protect young girls and women. He is banned from working in any shop or retail establishment that would bring him into contact with the public.

Sara Dodd, for Khan, said he maintained he had not committed the offence. She said Khan was in very poor health and suffered diabetes, renal and heart problems and had had a fall in prison.

Miss Dodd said: "If all he was here for was health care or state benefits, he need not have surrendered, but he did."