A PAEDOPHILE who went on the run and slit his throat in a suicide bid as his trial continued has been back in the Mold Crown Court dock.

Last week a warrant was issued for the arrest of Bryan Davies, 71, when he failed to turn up for the last week of his trial.

The court was told he was undergoing surgery in hospital with police standing guard.

This afternoon he was arrested on warrant after his discharge and was brought to Mold where he appeared before Judge Niclas Parry.

Judge Parry said the case was listed for sentence tomorrow and remanded him in custody overnight.

The judge said Davies had been subject to a surety when he was bailed and said the defence should consider whether the person who stood surety should attend court tomorrow.

Davies admitted a charge of failing to answer his bail.

Maria Massellis, defending, said when her client absented himself it was with the intention of taking his own life.

He had been airlifted to King’s College Hospital in London after he had been found in Folkstone.

That was somewhere where his family lived.

She said she was instructed to make an application for a psychiatric report.

Davies was concerned for his own mental wellbeing and the sentencing judge should have available to him the fullest information before determining the length of the sentence which was appropriate in his case.

Judge Parry said that was an application which could be made before the trial judge, Judge Huw Rees, who knew all about the matter .

Davies, the former deputy principal of a private children’s home in Llangollen, was last week convicted in his absence of a number of historic sexual offences against young boys in his care.

He had denied 29 charges against 11 boys back in the 1970s.

The jury of six men and six women returned 19 guilty verdicts - 15 of indecent assault upon six of the complainants and four of an illegal sex act upon another complainant.

He was found not guilty of indecently assaulting three other complainants and indulging in an illegal sex act upon one of them.

They also convicted Davies of six charges of making indecent images of children between 2007 and 2013 and three charges of inciting young boys to indulge in sexual acts over the internet in 2011 and 2012.

After being given the jury the majority direction, the jury convicted him of indecently assaulting another complainant by a 10-2 majority.

He was cleared of two charges of indecent assault.

Davies, of West Redhill in Surrey, denied all charges.

Davies lost his job after he admitted indecently assaulting two children at the home in Llangollen Magistrates Court in the late '70s.

After being arrested and interviewed he fled the country and had to be extradited from Malta.

After the verdicts were returned the jury was told that by prosecutor Daniel Moore that Davies had sent his solicitors an email indicating that he was going to take his own life.

The National Crime Agency used their techniques to discover that Davies was in a hotel in Folkstone in Kent.

Officers found Davies who had injured himself.

Judge Rees said it was not appropriate to sentence Davies in his absence for such offences.

He said he faced “an extremely substantial” sentence of imprisonment which would mean Davies “will be in extreme advanced old age before he is released from prison”.

The sexual offences happened at Ystrad Hall and an annex named Eirianfa at Llangollen, which was run by a private organisation named Care Concern, back in the 1970s.