A PAEDOPHILE who served jail sentences for holding a four-year-old boy in captivity and assaulting a boy of eight was sent back to prison yesterday for stalking young children.

Christopher Williams, 40, was caught after an undercover police surveillance operation in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire. He was jailed for ten years.

After finding Williams guilty of six out of seven charges of committing an act prohibited by a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, a jury at St Albans Crown Court was told that he had been responsible for one of the most infamous child kidnappings in Britain.

In September 1990 Williams, then known by his real name of Peter May, kidnapped a boy from a park in Hemel Hempstead and held him prisoner. A nationwide hunt was started for the child, eventually found safe and well.

May was jailed for 11 years for abduction and false imprisonment. After eight years, on his release, he snatched an eight-year old-boy in Edmonton, North London, and sexually assaulted him in the back of his car. He was jailed again, this time for 12 years, a sentence again cut to eight years.

After the latest trial, Judge Findlay Baker, QC, said that Williams had ?an uncontrolled compulsion which makes it almost inevitable that, if given the opportunity, he will reoffend?.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Hanlon said: ?The conviction of Christopher Williams means that a highly dangerous and predatory sex offender has been removed from the community.?