A DOUBLE rapist who has twice threatened to jump off a bridge was yesterday warned he will be jailed if he wastes the resources of emergency crews again.

Thomas Stephens’ suicide bid was thwarted during a costly exercise involving firefighters, paramedics, negotiators, a lifeboat, harbour police and a helicopter.

The sex attacker appeared in court to be dealt with for causing a public nuisance and failing to notify the authorities of his change of address.

He was given a community order with Probation Service supervision and received a stern ticking off from Judge Peter Bowers at Teesside Crown Court.

The judge told the 50- year-old former scrapyard worker: “Quite frankly, I don’t see why the public should have to pay for you wanting to kill yourself.”

The January 16 operation at Newport Bridge – which links Middlesbrough and Stockton – is estimated to have cost the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds.

Only three months before the drama, Stephens – convicted of rape in 1986 and 1997, and indecent assault in 1995 – threatened to jump from the same bridge.

He turned to drink following three deaths in his family in the Nineties, and was intoxicated when he was talked down from the ledge after almost four hours 30ft up.

Days earlier, Stephens had been arrested and charged for breaching the terms of his sex offender registration by failing to tell police where he was living.

Stephen Thornton, mitigating, urged Judge Bowers not to jail him because he had spent the equivalent of an eight-month sentence on remand.

Judge Bowers told jobless Stephens, formerly of Rainham Close, Middlesbrough: “I tremble to think what you might be like in a week’s time if you get back on the booze.

“If you go up Newport Bridge like you have in the past, I expect someone will have to lock you up for a number of years just to keep you safe.”

In 1997, Stephens was jailed for eight years for attacking a woman in his home. His previous conviction for rape – for which he was jailed for four years – had involved a woman he met in a nightclub in 1985.