A PAEDOPHILE who handed himself in to police has been locked up indefinitely after he was branded a significant danger to children.

Steven Watts was told by a judge that he will be released from prison only when parole board officials are convinced he is no longer a risk.

The 42-year-old former cadet leader was also put on the sex offenders’ register for life and barred from visiting recreation buildings and grounds.

Teesside Crown Court heard yesterday that Watts was convicted in 2007 of three charges of inciting children to engage in sexual activity.

He was given a 12-month suspended jail sentence with a condition to seek treatment, and was banned from working with children for life.

But last year, he subjected a young girl to a catalogue of sickening abuse, and later told police after giving himself up: “I just couldn’t stop it.”

Duncan McReddie, in mitigation, told the court that Watts was ashamed of what he had done and was anxious to seek help for his problem.

He told Judge George Moorhouse: “He appears before you contrite and full of remorse for giving in to what he knows are abnormal urges.

“He will do what he can – any course of treatment or act of surgery – to ensure that these acts do not repeat themselves.

“Mr Watts accepts fully that he has no mitigation of any significance to advance.

“But I am instructed explicitly to express his feelings of remorse, his sorrow for the humiliation and the continuing harm that he knows these acts will cause. Mr Watts was previously subject to an order and supervision and he was complying with that to the letter when he committed this offence.

“It is debatable as to the effectiveness of that order, but I invite you to think that it had not run its full course and that its work had not concluded and its desired aim had not been achieved.

“As a result of that, he surrendered himself to police custody and made full, frank and open admissions.”

Judge Moorhouse told Watts, of Sacriston Close, Billingham, near Stockton, that the five charges of rape he admitted were grave offences.

He said: “I am firmly of the opinion that you pose a significant risk of harm to female children.”

Detective Constable Simon Bage, from Cleveland Police, said: “The child abuse investigation unit will apprehend and deal with, robustly and professionally, members of our society who prey on and abuse children, ensuring they are brought to justice.”