A WHEELCHAIR-bound paedophile who was spared prison after a judge was misinformed about the facilities available for disabled prisoners, has now been jailed for two years.

The mix-up was revealed after the Lancashire Evening Telegraph contacted the Prison Service to find out how it deals with disabled prisoners.

Today Burnley MP Peter Pike said: "It's a good job the Lancashire Evening Telegraph focused attention on this and discovered the truth. Thanks to the Evening Telegraph we now have the right result."

Richard Fitzpatrick, who subjected a young girl to a series of indecent assaults over six years, was ordered to surrender to custody by noon today by Criminal Appeal Court Vice-President, Lord Justice Rose, who accepted the Attorney General's arguments that a three-year probation order originally imposed was "unduly lenient".

Fitzpatrick, 49, from Nelson, admitted seven counts of indecent assault on a girl between 1991 and 1997 when she was between eight and 15 years old.

But in December last year, Fitzpatrick was put on probation for three years after Burnley Crown Court was told that Preston prison did not have the specialist facilities to cope with him.

He was ordered to register as a sex offender for five years.

Dr David Thomas, for the Attorney General, told the Appeal Court in London that the sentencing judge was "misinformed" about the facilities that existed for wheelchair-bound prisoners.

Fitzptrick fell off a roof in 1989 sustaining serious injuries that confined him to a wheelchair.

It was after the accident that the offences took place. When arrested in June last year Fitzpatrick made full admissions to the police.

Judge Bennett had said that in usual circumstances, he would have jailed Fitzpatrick for five years.

Lord Justice Rose told the appeal court: "He did not pass such a sentence because there was a letter before him from the head of residential care at Her Majesty's Prison Preston which stated that the offender could not be humanely accommodated at that prison."

But subsequent correspondence from the prison service revealed there were at least three prisons in the north of England alone that were "well able" to accommodate him.

Lord Justice Rose said the sentencing judge was correct to identify five years as the appropriate sentence that Fitzptrick should have received.

He said: "It follows that the sentence passed by the learned judge was an unduly lenient sentence and it seems to us that it is one with which the court should interfere."

Today Pendle MP Gordon Prentice said: "The law is an ass. If the courts and the criminal justice system can't get it together in a case like this what does it say about Britain."

Mr Pike added: "The most important thing is to protect the public but it does send out a message to paedophiles that they cannot avoid prison because of a legal loophole or technical problems."