A PAEDOPHILE branded a “devious sexual predator” by police is making a bid for freedom.

Just under a year after John Oliver, 69, gave his carers the slip and went on the run for eight days he has applied to be released from his secure unit at Clare House, in Pound Lane, North Benfleet.

Oliver, who is being detained under the Mental Health Act, is entitled to apply to be released under the terms of the Act.

But, in a bid to control his movements, police have now applied for a Sexual Offences Prevention Order at Southend Magistrates’ Court.

The orders are designed to protect the public from serious harm at the hands of a convicted sex offender.

They enable police to apply restrictions to offenders’ movements and behaviour – such as banning them from working with children.

In the application, put forward by Essex Police, it says officers are asking for the order on the grounds that when Oliver was previously released he was a “great risk to the public”.

The order is also to “manage the risk and protect the public from serious sexual harm”.

It is understood Oliver has opposed the police’s application, however a temporary order has been placed on him ahead of a full hearing next month.

A spokesman for Essex Police said: “We can confirm that we did apply for an order and that an interim order was granted.

“These orders are designed to prevent and minimise the harm to the public that an offender poses by controlling the behaviour of the subject of the order.”

Oliver was given a two-year probation order for indecently assaulting a 12-year-old girl in 1998.

He was placed into mental health care where he has a history of escaping.

Oliver absconded three times in four months while a patient at a hospital in Beckton, East London, in 2008.

In September 2009, Oliver got away from Clare House staff while on a supervised trip to Basildon town centre.

In a letter leaked to the Echo at the time from Essex Police’s Det Chief Insp Darrin Thomkins to the North Essex Mental Health Partnership, the officer branded Oliver an “intelligent, devious, uncontrollable, sexual predator” who “regularly preyed on vulnerable individuals”.

The senior detective also warned that releasing Oliver into the community would be “dangerous”.

Oliver was eventually found last year in a Colchester hotel room eight days after he went on the run.

The sex offender will return to the court next month when judges will decide whether to grant the order.

St Andrew’s Healthcare, who run Clare House, declined to comment.