Rapist awarded payout for arrest error

A convicted paedophile and rapist was awarded damages for wrongful arrest today in a case costing the taxpayer more than £20,000.

Robin Frampton, 53, from Southampton, who was placed on the sex offenders' register for life after an indecent assault on a prostitute, was arrested in Selby, North Yorkshire, for breaching the terms of his licence.

The case was later dropped at court and Frampton was today awarded £3,075 compensation after a judge at Leeds County Court found he had been wrongfully arrested and imprisoned by North Yorkshire Police.

Frampton lost an additional claim against the force for malicious prosecution.

North Yorkshire Police were ordered to pay the damages and Frampton's court costs of around £10,500, with any further costs to the claimant to be pursued through legal aid.

Legal costs to the police are believed to be in the region of £10,000.

A one-day court hearing earlier this year heard how, in July 2006, Frampton told his wife he was going to a barbecue at a male friend's house but instead travelled to Selby to stay with a woman he met through a telephone dating service.

He went to a police station in the town to inform them out of "courtesy" that he was staying in the area and showed officers a document with his alias Robert Williams, an old address and claiming his placement on the sex offenders' register had expired.

The "high-risk" sex offender also failed to give police the right name and address of his girlfriend.

Detectives, who believed he had failed to give police his new address within the three-day time limit given to sex offenders who are moving home and thought he could pose a danger to members of the public, traced him to his girlfriend's house and arrested him for giving false details and failing to register a change of address.

He was charged and held in custody on remand for 110 days before the Crown Prosecution Service formally offered no evidence when the case was heard at crown court.

Frampton was jailed in 1980 for the attempted rape of a young girl and again in 1989 for raping a pensioner in her own home.

He was sentenced to 12 months in July 1999 for the indecent assault and ordered to register as a sex offender for five years but his jail term was later increased to three years by the Court of Appeal, automatically placing him on the register indefinitely.