A RAPIST pensioner on the run from South African police has been jailed for sex attacks he carried out almost 25 years ago.

James Frazer abused two teenage girls in Sunderland during the 1980s, and ensured their silence by issuing sinister threats.

The 71-year-old warned the youngsters they were to keep quiet, and told one girl she would be “taken away” if she told.

At Newcastle Crown Court yesterday Frazer was jailed for 12 years.

Judge Beatrice Bolton told him: “You were convicted in South Africa of similar offences, you clearly at that time were something of a sexual predator.

“These are serious offences of repeated rape, and although you were a younger man when you committed them, those girls have had to deal with the consequences for many years.”

Frazer denied rape, but was found guilty last month by a jury.

After the guilty verdicts the court heard how Frazer moved to South Africa, where in December 2001, he was jailed for 15 years for the rape of a young girl.

But after being bailed in 2002 to appeal his conviction, he fled the to the UK.

Frazer could be deported to serve the remaining 12 years of his sentence in South Africa once his jail term for the Sunderland rapes is complete.

Frazer was arrested in Sunderland after one of his victims had a chance meeting with him when he returned from South Africa and reported her ordeal at his hands.

He was arrested in relation to that girl, now in her 30s, in May last year and denied any wrong doing.

The other alleged Wearside victim came forward in September last year.

He was re-arrested and again denied any wrongdoing.

The jury found Frazer, of Fulwell Road, Sunderland, guilty by a unanimous verdict of three counts of indecent assault against one of the girls, and four charges of rape against the other, two of which were committed when she was a child.