An illegal immigrant wanted on suspicion of raping a child was at large for more than six years after he deliberately misled police over his real name, a Court heard.

Samed Yakubu, from Ghana, was not apprehended until March this year after failing to answer bail on January 29, 2005.

Bradford Crown Court was told that officers tried to trace Yakubu under the false name he gave when he was first arrested in December, 2004.

He gave his real name reversed, as Yakubu Samed, in a second police interview but then reverted to the false one.

When he jumped police bail and fled to London, he was hunted under the original false name that he had used to obtain work in Bradford as a cleaner.

A DNA match was made in March, police in London notified and Yakubu arrested.

His trial on the rape charge was set to start this week but yesterday the Crown dropped the allegation and Yakubu admitted the lesser alternative offence of sexual activity with a girl aged 14 and perverting the course of justice.

He was jailed for 12 months and will almost certainly be deported when he has served his sentence.

Prosecutor Tina Dempster said Yakubu had sex with the schoolgirl after persuading her to go to his flat in Bradford city centre on the evening of December 2, 2004.

They exchanged phone numbers but the next day the girl made a complaint of rape.

Yakubu, 31, of Wesley Avenue, Newham, London, had stayed out of trouble in the almost seven years since the offence, his barrister, Jacqueline Lule, told the court.

His partner had given birth to triplets in April but one of the babies had died.

Miss Lule said Yakubu was brought up in poverty in Ghana.

He obtained work as a shoe shiner and lived in Libya, Italy and Belgium before coming to the UK illegally.

He had rented a room in Bradford and was employed as a packer and a cleaner.

Judge Peter Benson said it was “a rather unusual case”.

Police had tried to trace Yakubu under the bogus identity.

The judge made a Sexual Offences Prevention Order for two years barring Yakubu from unsupervised contact with any children but his own family members.