A sex offender from Lancashire moved north to live with a Dunfermline woman and her young daughter.

Mohammed Ashcroft, 44, is on the sex offenders register indefinitely and failed to inform police he had changed address.

Ashcroft, of Springfield Street, Darwen, appeared for sentencing at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.

He previously admitted that between January 2 and 30 last year at an address in Dunfermline, being subject to notification requirements under the Sex Offences Act 2003, he failed to inform police he was living at a new address.

Ashcroft was convicted of sexual offences at Wolverhampton Crown Court in 2010.

He was put on the sex offenders register for an indefinite period and the next review of that status is not until August next year. He is therefore required to notify police of any change of address within three days.

Ashcroft met a Dunfermline woman via an online game.

“They communicated over social media and exchanged romantic messages,” said depute fiscal Jamie Hilland.

On January 2 Ashcroft came to Scotland to stay with the woman, who lives in a three-bedroom house with her eight-year-old daughter. On January 9, Ashcroft’s wife followed him to Scotland and she too lived in the Dunfermline woman’s house.

The woman told police that Ashcoft “helped her with jobs and heavy lifting around the house, helped her with shopping and walked with her to work as she was anxious about walking there alone”.

Sheriff Craig McSherry imposed a four-month restriction of liberty order.

In 2010, Ashcroft was jailed for five and a half years for a string of serious sex attacks on two schoolgirls.