Sex offender who fled Britain arrested in Dublin city hotel

A convicted sex offender who fled from Britain to Ireland has been arrested by gardaí in a Dublin hotel.

Julian Myerscough (53), a former criminal law lecturer at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, disappeared from Ipswich Crown Court on Wednesday afternoon.

The jury in his case was considering verdicts over allegations of downloading child pornography and breaching a sexual offences prevention order at the time.

He was previously convicted at Ipswich Crown Court, Suffolk of making and possessing indecent images of children in 2010. He received a 15-month sentence.

Similar charges

On Wednesday, he appeared at the same court on similar charges, but absconded before he was convicted again.

Police thought he had taken the 1.43pm train from Ipswich to London Liverpool Street, but they could find no trace of him when they searched the train.

He was then identified as travelling on a ferry from Holyhead to Dublin at lunchtime on Thursday.

Gardaí from the newly formed Garda National Protective Service Bureau (GNPSB) mounted an operation in conjunction with Store Street gardaí and the Garda Extradition Section and liaised closely with Suffolk Police and the National Crime Agency.

Hungary-bound

Myerscough was discovered in a city centre hotel on Friday morning. He would have travelled to Budapest, Hungary that afternoon had he not been apprehended by gardaí.

This is the second “on the run” sex offender apprehended in recent months.

In September, convicted sex attacker Mian Shahid, who was convicted in his absence of two counts of sexual assault of an 18-year-old female, was arrested by gardaí as he boarded a flight to Dubai.

Det Insp Paul O'Brien from the sex offender management and intelligence unit of the GNPSB said both arrests were an "example of close co-operation between the Irish and UK authorities. It demonstrates that An Garda Síochána has a robust operational approach to transient sex offenders."