Detectives today appealed for help tracing East Sussex man Warwick Spinks, one of Britain's most wanted paedophiles.

The hunt for Spinks, 36, has led Scotland Yard detectives to Hastings, where he lived when convicted in 1995 for abducting a teenage runaway to an Amsterdam brothel.

Spinks was given seven years after Lewes Crown Court heard he enslaved the 14-year-old into working in a Dutch brothel by plying him with drugs.

In May 1993 the lad went to Spinks' flat in George Street, where he and a 15-year-old friend were sexually assaulted at knifepoint.

Spinks served two-and-a-half years at Elmley Prison, Sheerness, Kent, for serious sexual assault, taking indecent pictures of children and abducting a child.

He was released on licence in July 1997 but was reported to have fled the country two months later after apparently refusing to be listed on the national sex offenders register.

Spinks has since been ordered to return to prison after almost four years of freedom for breaching the conditions of his licence.

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: "We are launching this appeal now because despite extensive efforts by police, we have not been able to trace him."

She said detectives were delving back into Spinks' links with Sussex in the hope they would unearth fresh clues.

She added: "We are looking all over for this man, who we consider a serious threat to children."

Anyone with information should call the Metropolitan Police Child Pornography Information Line free on 0808 100 0040 or the paedophile unit on 020 7230 3104.