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Sex offender forced out after Star campaign

A serial sex offender whose days in Ipswich were counted by the Evening Star has now become a story in another part of the country.

Steven Beech spent ten days in Ipswich, where he stayed as a “guest” of the local police force.

He camped at the town’s police station because although he’s served his sentence, he is considered so dangerous he must be kept under surveillance.

He had been driven out of accommodation in Sheffield when people there found out how dangerous he was.

During his stay in Ipswich he visited several pubs and tried to chat up women he met.

He has now moved on to Peterborough, where he is again staying in a police cell where he enjoys free hot meals and other home comforts.

The Evening Telegraph reports that he has 115 convictions for sex offences, armed robbery and affray and although it has not launched a campaign to move him on, as the Suffolk paper did, it has asked readers to phone the newsdesk if they see Beech out and about in the city.

Evening Star editor Nigel Pickover said: “It took us five days. We said we’d carry his face in the paper every day to warn people – and he’s now gone.

“We always said he had no right to come to Ipswich; he had no connections here and was a danger to women in Ipswich.

“The police had him corralled in the police station. We did not want him here and we did not want up to six officers a day being taken from other duties to take care of him.”

The Telegraph yesterday published an interview Beech gave to the Ipswich paper last week, in which he claimed he knew he was costing money but feared he was being “hunted down”.

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