On-the-run sex offender Paul Robson, 56, police have confirmed.

The convicted sex offender was arrested in the Skegness area.

This comes four days after he escaped from an open prison near Boston, Lincolnshire Police said.

East Area Commander Chief Superintendent Kate Anderson said: “We are pleased to report that we have arrested Paul Robson.

“We are grateful to members of the public for their help and support in sharing our appeals and we’d also like to give thanks to everyone who have called in with potential sightings of him.

Paul Robson found in Skegness

“We’d also like to extend our thanks to partner agencies and our officers for working tirelessly to apprehend Robson.”

The convicted sex offender Paul Robson absconded from a Lincolnshire prison, sparking a nationwide manhunt on Sunday, February 13.

Robson was serving a life sentence for attempted rape and indecent assault.

He was jailed at Oxford Crown Court in 2000 after he entered a woman’s home through a cat flap before tying her up, putting a pillowcase over her head, and brutally assaulting her while holding a knife to her throat.

The 56-year-old had only been released from prison three weeks before the attack and was on licence – with the sentencing judge describing him as a “menace to females”.

On Sunday Robson walked out of HMP North Sea Camp near Boston. The jail is a category D men’s open prison which holds a large proportion of sex offenders and those serving indeterminate sentences, according to an inspector’s report following a scrutiny visit in April last year.

The report, published in June, said 70% of prisoners were assessed as “presenting a high risk of harm to others” and more than half were convicted of sex offences.