A convicted murderer who raped a ten-year-old boy after threatening to slit his throat has been told by a judge he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Stephen Ayre dragged the terrified child into his flat and subjected him to the brutal sex attack.

Ayre, 44, had been released on licence from a life sentence for murder only ten months before he attacked the boy at his flat in Bingley Road, Saltaire, on February 19 this year.

He had spent 20 years in prison for murdering 25-year-old machinist Irene Hudson in Shipley in September 1984.

Todaywed Mr Justice Tugendhat told Ayre he must go to prison for the rest of his life.

Silver-haired Ayre, who wore glasses and a blue open-necked shirt, remained impassive in the dock at Leeds Crown Court as he was sentenced.

The court had heard that he deliberately targeted the youngster because he was depressed outside of prison and wanted to go back there.

Prosecutor Gavin Howie told the court that Ayre was jailed for life in March 1985 for the sexually motivated murder of Miss Hudson.

He was freed on April 27 last year on a life licence.

Conditions of his freedom included avoiding the area in Shipley where Miss Hudson's elderly mother still lives.

But on January 17 this year Ayre breached his licence conditions by being convicted by Keighley magistrates of being drunk and disorderly. He was conditionally discharged but could have been returned to jail to continue serving the life sentence.

After his court appearance Ayre continued to be depressed and to find life outside jail difficult to cope with, said Mr Howie.

On the night of his arrest for drunkenness he was found knocking on the door of the property where his deceased mother used to live although she had died nine years previously.

Mr Justice Tugendhat told Ayre that his sex attack on the boy was horrific.

It followed the murder of Miss Hudson when Ayre was 23 and he beat her to death by a canal in a sexually motivated attack.

The judge told Ayre that he attacked the boy because he missed prison and wanted to go back there.

He branded Ayre "extremely dangerous".

"There is a high risk that you will commit other serious and violent sexual offences if you are free to do so. There is a high risk that someone will be raped or killed," said Mr Justice Tugendhat.

He said the child had been harmed for life by his terrifying ordeal.

He said Ayre should go to prison for the rest of his life but if he ever was released he would be permanently on licence.

Mr Justice Tugendhat said that the court hearing was not an inquiry into how Ayre was free to commit the offences but he understood the concern from the boy's family and the public about that aspect of the case.

Ayre pleaded guilty at Bradford Crown Court last month to two charges of raping the boy, forcing him to commit a sex act and abducting him.

Mr Howie said that Ayre approached the child while he was playing with a friend outside a chip shop.

He had planned the attack and told the boy he had a BMX bike that he could give him. He persuaded the lad to accompany him back to his flat but when the child refused to go inside he picked him up and dragged him over the threshold.

He threatened to slice his throat with a Stanley knife and the boy feared that he would be killed.

"If you don't do as I say I will slit your throat," Ayre told him.

The child was subjected to a brutal half-hour sex ordeal.

Afterwards Ayre handed him some loose change and the boy ran sobbing to tell his father.

Father and son saw Ayre sitting on his scooter in the area shortly afterwards. His dad pushed him from the machine but Ayre was able to ride off and escape from the police. He handed himself in later that day.

He told detectives he needed to go back to jail as he was not safe being out in society.

He said he had turned up the volume on his television to drown the child's sobs and cries.

Ayre's barrister Michelle Colborne conceded that any prospect of his release was "remote and extreme".

She said he was deeply sorry for his crimes but had been unable to cope with the stresses he found himself under in the community.

Although he had a psychopathic disorder Ayre was not mentally ill.