A convicted rapist who served 10 years for raping and robbing prostitutes was back in court after he was caught with a sex worker in an alleyway.
Police caught John Paul Wallace as he was about to have sex with a prostitute in central Middlesbrough, 14 years after his rape conviction.
He was jailed for 10 years in May 2000 for rape, robbery and attempted robbery after he took two prostitutes into an alley.
He tried to rob them at knifepoint and, when one of the women could not give him the money, he raped her, Teesside Crown Court heard.
Today the 45-year-old was given a suspended jail term for flouting an order designed the protect the public from him.
A judge felt it was not in the public interest to jail Wallace, who was deemed to pose a risk to sex workers.
Magistrates gave Wallace an indefinite sexual offences prevention order (SOPO) in November 2011.
The order banned him from having any physical, sexual or intimate relationship with a female without first notifying his police risk management officer and telling the woman of his conviction.
He fell foul of the order for the first time on the night of November 15 last year.
Prosecutor Emma Atkinson said an officer saw a prostitute getting into a Toyota Yaris driven by Wallace on Borough Road in Middlesbrough at 10.30pm.
He was later caught with his trousers unzipped and the woman semi-naked in an alley off Stockton Street in St Hildas.
She said he had asked her for sex for £20, while Wallace claimed she had propositioned him.
Wallace, of Cobham Street, Gresham, Middlesbrough, admitted his first breach of the SOPO.
The Probation Service assessed Wallace as a risk to the public, particularly sex workers, but suggested a suspended sentence.
Rachel Dyson, defending, said no violence was threatened or used and no physical or psychological harm done to the prostitute in this case, and police arrived before sex took place.
“The fact that he’s a high risk is something that needs to be managed and is being managed to a certain degree within the community," she said.
“It’s not the risk that he poses that he’s being sentenced for today.”
Ms Dyson said Wallace, released from prison in 2006, was working well with his supervising police officer and complying with the detective’s supervision, including unannounced visits to his home.
The judge, Recorder Eric Elliott QC, told Wallace: “It’s clear to me that since your prison sentence you’ve done your level best to try and lead a decent and hard-working life.
“Over the last three to four years you’ve tried to turn your life around.
“So it seems to me that it would not be either in your interests or the public interest to impose what would normally be a relatively short prison sentence.”
The judge said it would help Wallace to have “somebody to turn to” in the Probation Service to discuss his problems.
He gave Wallace a six-month jail term suspended for two years with supervision.
Sentencing Wallace for the rape and robbery offences in 2000, Judge John Walford said: “You treated these vulnerable women abominably and they were convinced they were going to die.”
It was reported at the time that he raped two prostitutes in the space of six days, robbing one of £60 and trying to rob the other in Middlesbrough’s red light district.
He agreed to pay the women for sex but afterwards he put a large knife to their throats and searched their pockets.
The young women told police their attacker had “dark, evil eyes” and picked him out in an identity parade.
He denied all four charges and was convicted after a trial.
Wallace is on the sex offenders’ register for life.
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