A CONVICTED sex offender who repeatedly breached a requirement to tell the police where he lives refused to confirm his name in court as he told a judge of how he had become “fed up”.

Darren Collins, 47, has been required to keep the police informed of his address for 15 years, after he was convicted of sexual offences against a child.

As part of the sentence, he was placed on the sex offender’s notification register until further order.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard he had since breached the notification requirements three times.

The latest breach occurred when Collins registered his parents’ home in Harwich as his address.

But on January 14 at about 3am, officers found him sleeping in his car in Harwich.

His parents revealed he had not in fact been living at their address since before Christmas.

The police then tried to contact Collins “without any real success”, before they received a tip-off he had been staying at a Premier Inn.

Officers caught up with him at the hotel in February and discovered on various dates between January and February he had been staying at three hotels in Clacton, Harwich and Colchester.

He admitted two breaches of notification requirements when he appeared at Colchester Magistrates’ Court.

Appearing in court on Monday, he told Judge David Turner QC: “I’m fed up with it, I just want to move on I just want to find a way to be happy in life.”

The court heard he has been required to notify the police of his address since his 2004 conviction for indecency with a girl aged under 14, offences for which he received a 12-month prison sentence.

Judge Turner said Collins had given “a very clear view of the disgust he feels towards the order”, adding his attitude in court had included choosing not to answer his name when asked by the court clerk.

He added: “I’m afraid these requirements are onerous, they are meant to be.

“They are set down by law, Parliament has decided that people who commit sexual offences require to be monitored and in your case that has now gone on for a considerable period.”

He sentenced Collins, of no fixed address, to eight months imprisonment.