A SEX offender has been told he faces jail if he fails to attend a course designed to cure his perverted behaviour.

Anthony Young, 24, was yesterday spared prison by a judge who told him: "This is the last-chance saloon for you."

Young, of Corporation Street, Shildon, County Durham, appeared at Teesside Crown Court to be dealt with for breaching part of a three-year community rehabilitation order.

The order had been imposed in July last year for a sexual assault on a 14-year- old girl, but Young twice failed to attend sex offender programme meetings in May this year.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Peter Fox QC, yesterday revoked the original order and imposed a new one for three years.

Judge Fox ordered progress reports every three months and warned Young: "If you chuck it, then there is the prison door. No more chances."

Young, who has previous convictions for indecent assault on a girl under 14 in 1998, and indecent assault in 2001, was told: "You know what your problem is.

"I thought a year ago that it was in the public interest that that problem should be dealt with, and could be dealt with, without further offending against young girls.

"You have not offended against young girls in the meantime and you had better not."