A CONVICTED rapist who set up a Facebook account using a different name has been jailed by a sheriff — only to walk free from court.

Paul Dowds broke sex register rules by using the alias after his online profile was hounded with abuse.

He then told police he wasn’t aware what he’d done was an offence.

Despite being handed a two month jail term over the crime, Dowds was able to leave the court a free man because he had been remanded in custody for a lengthy period.

It’s the second time Dowds has breached the rules — in June the Tele reported how he was sent to prison after going AWOL in Greenock for five days and failing to notify police of his whereabouts.

He was originally jailed for seven years in 2007 for a violent sex attack and released in 2011.

The 39-year-old appeared from custody at Greenock Sheriff Court to admit a charge of failing to notify police that he was using the alias Paul Johnston — his former surname — on the social networking site between 23 and 28 July.

Depute fiscal Pamela Brady said: “It came to light that he had a Facebook account and registered it in the name of Paul Johnston instead of Paul Dowds.

“On 28 July police officers attended at his home and he was detained.

“The notification requirements were pointed out to him relating to the sex offenders register in that he had to notify police of his alias.

“He appreciated that but said he was not aware that it was an offence.

“He said: ‘I never thought I was committing an offence, but I do now’.

Solicitor Tony Callaghan told the court that Dowds’ Facebook page was ‘bombarded with abuse’ leading the sex offender to use his former name of Johnston on the social networking site.

He was known by that name until his ‘mid teens’ when it was changed, he said, following a family break-up.

Sheriff Derek Hamilton told Dowds: “I accept the circumstances are unusual and that you were subject to abuse so reverted to a name you used for many years.

“Had you used a random name that would have been a completely different scenario.

“But as it was a name you used for a number of years people could associate you with that.” The sheriff imposed a two month jail sentence backdated to 29 July — the date when Dowds’ was remanded in custody — meaning he walked free from court.