A convicted child sex offender last seen by his restaurant worker colleagues leaving town in a taxi had ‘definitely scarpered’, a judge said.

Abm Uddin, 38, was due before Oxford Crown Court this week to be sentenced for seven counts of attempted sexual communication with children and one charge of attempting to incite a 14-year-old child to engage in sexual activity.

But while the two barristers, the police officer in charge of the case, a probation officer, court clerk, usher and judge were present in courtroom four on Thursday (March 9), the only person not in court was the defendant.

READ MORE: Uddin's plea hearing at Oxford Crown Court

Prosecuting, Charles Ward-Jackson said that the officer in the case had last spoken to Uddin on the telephone on February 27 to remind him of the upcoming court hearing.

That, it would appear, had spooked him. Nobody had heard from him since.

The police officer told the judge that she visited his last known address, a Goring restaurant where he was working, earlier this week.

His colleagues told the officer that Uddin ‘went off in a taxi last Tuesday’. She added: “They didn’t know where he was going.” They thought he might be going to catch a train.

Recorder Samantha Presland said: “He definitely scarpered [and] he’s got a week’s head start on everybody.”

She suggested that he was ‘likely to be heading to Bangladesh’, where he has family. Mr Ward-Jackson told the court that Uddin’s brother-in-law, who lives in Islington, had contacted their extended family in Bangladesh. They said they had not heard from the defendant.

The judge said: “It’s ironic because if he’d actually engaged with probation, then this is the type of thing where he may have got a suspended sentence.”

“I wouldn’t disagree with that, so I hope he does re-engage at some stage,” the prosecutor replied.

Recorder Presland issued a warrant for Uddin's arrest.

In February, when he appeared before the court for a plea hearing, Uddin was described as a ‘fairly prolific’ offender.

In the summer of 2021 and then living in Henley, he befriended what he supposed were children online and steered the conversation around to sex.

The ‘girls’ with whom he thought he was talking were, in fact, decoy accounts operated by adults.

Defence barrister Christopher Pembridge asked Judge Ian Pringle KC, who was then dealing with the case, to order a probation pre-sentence report.

Unlike in other similar cases, however, no explicit images were sent by his client or requested of the ‘girls’, he said. Uddin had no previous convictions.

Judge Pringle agreed to the request and granted Uddin bail.