The police search for a former Suffolk law lecturer who went missing from court shortly before a jury convicted him of downloading child porn was widened last night after he was reportedly sighted in Ireland.

Julian Myerscough, a former criminal law lecturer at UEA in Norwich, absconded from Ipswich Crown Court on Wednesday lunchtime.

He was believed to have caught a train from Ipswich station shortly before the jury in his trial came back with guilty verdicts on all of the 16 charges he faced.

Ipswich Crown Court judge, Emma Peters, issued a warrant for 55-year-old Myerscough’s arrest as soon as it became apparent he had disappeared and took the jury’s verdicts in his absence.

Yesterday Judge Rupert Overbury issued a European arrest warrant under the Extradition Act 2003 after being told that Myerscough had been seen in Dublin after catching a ferry to Ireland last night.

Issuing the warrant at Ipswich Crown Court Judge Overbury said:”He is roaming free in Dublin and the quicker the warrant is issued the quicker he will be returned to this jurisdiction and his case can be finished.”

Myerscough, formerly of Alexandra Road, Lowestoft, had pleaded not guilty to three offences of breaching a sexual offences prevention order between December 2010 and September 2013 and 13 offences of making indecent images of children.

During his trial, in which he represented himself, the court heard that Myerscough was convicted in 2010 after a trial of five offences of making and possessing indecent images of children and cleared of 15 other offences.

As a result of his conviction in 2010 Myerscough was made the subject of a sexual offences prevention order (SOPO)which banned him from having a computer or mobile phone that didn’t retain the internet use history and banned him from attempting to delete the internet history on his computer equipment

Marc Brown, prosecuting, said the prohibitions were designed to enable Myerscough’s internet activity to be monitored to ensure he didn’t continue to obtain and view indecent images of children.

On September 26, 2013 police executed search warrants at Myerscough’s former home address in Alexandra Road, Lowestoft and at his mother’s address in Bolton and seized a laptop computer, a computer tower and a USB memory stick.

When the equipment was inspected all three items were found to have indecent images of children, which were mainly in the form of videos, said Mr Brown.

Myerscough denied responsibility for the presence of indecent images of children on all three pieces of computer equipment.

Giving evidence during the trial he denied he got a sexual thrill out of watching young children being abused and that he was someone who “wouldn’t be told by the courts what he mustn’t do.”