A violent sex offender branded a dangerous predator broke into a care home and murdered an elderly resident after fleeing his bail hostel.

Scott Sorby, 21, had been freed from prison for the attempted rape of a lone student and was on licence when he absconded from the hostel in January last year.

By the time police found him five days later after a full-scale manhunt, he had committed burglaries, robberies and thefts and had broken into the Rosewood Court care home in Bradford, West Yorks., where he attacked Elizabetta Pecka, aged 94 at the time.

Ms Pecka was found with facial injuries in a pool of blood in a bathroom after being sexually attacked and beaten. She died in hospital two months later at the age of 95.

Sorby, who once admitted smashing up a young offenders’ institution because he was in a “silly mood”, was told to expect a life sentence after he pleaded guilty at Bradford Crown Court to offences including murder and attempted rape, burglaries, robberies and thefts.