Warning as Rossendale rapist is spared jail (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Warning as Rossendale rapist is spared jail

1:00pm Tuesday 26th February 2013 in News

A CONVICTED rapist who went on the run from his Rossendale home has been warned he faces four years in jail if he flouts a sex offences order.

Alan Clune, 32, had been hunted by police after he left the house he shared with his then-partner, in Cedar Avenue, Haslingden, last May.

At the time, a police inspector said he posed a risk to the public.

Clune was eventually caught in Hammersmith, West London, after 10 days, was brought back to East Lancashire and taken into custody in Burnley.

He is on the sex offenders’ register for life and should notify police of any change of address within three days.

In December 2002, the former Big Issue seller, who knew he was HIV positive, was jailed for four years after raping a man in Swansea town centre.

After admitting breaching the notification requirements of the sex offenders’ register, at Burnley Crown Court, he was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years.

Sentencing, Judge Beverley Lunt told Clune: “The trouble with you is if you go off the rails, you go off spectacularly.”