A man banned from having sex without first telling the police has been sent to jail for 16 months for having a one-night stand with a woman he met in a pub.

It is a scene acted out in bars up and down the UK every night, but for Geoffrey Ball it has led to a lengthy spell behind bars.

Serial offender Ball, 45, was subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, a legal restriction described as "draconian but necessary" when it was placed on him.

He met the 50-year-old woman in a Yates' pub and began chatting to her and her daughter before going home to the woman's home in Middlesbrough and having sex.

It was enough to place him in breach of the order and in court his barrister said he accepted that he could not act like "any normal person" because of the restriction.

Ball's case echoes that of John O'Neill, 45, from York, who was given a 24-hour notice period in which he had to inform police if he wished to have sex with a woman.