A SEX offender was caught loitering in a children’s play area on the shores of Windermere after forgetting the terms of his monitoring agreement.

Former Cumbria Magistrate Geoffrey Crookes, 79, is banned from going within 100m of any school, park or play area after being convicted of taking indecent pictures of young boys on a camcorder in Fell Foot Park.

But during the first week of the school summer holidays, Crookes, a retired college lecturer, was spotted in the National Trust park while children played and swam in the water.

Officers recognised the sex offender – who previously served two separate prison sentences for abusing a young boys on the 1980s and 1990s – and arrested him.

Crookes, of Granby Road, Grange, accepted he had been in the park but said he was becoming forgetful in his old age.

He told officers he was a National Trust member and was enjoying a day out, adding at his age he was simply happy to see the children playing on the climbing frames and play equipment.

However he accepted he had been banned from the play area after taking camcorder footage of naked youngsters swimming in the lake on a previous occasion, and been made the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order.

Officers from Cumbria police who monitor sex offenders said they had seen a deterioration in Crookes’s mobility and mental health in recent years. He now has a power of attorney to manage his affairs and walks with a stick. He was not deemed fit to enter a plea to breaching the terms of his SOPO but Judge Michael Byrne made a finding of fact that he had been in the area when he was banned from doing so.

Judge Byrne, sentencing, said: “I am satisfied that there is a need for supervision. I am going to make a supervision order for two years which will be supervised by the probation service and local authority.”