A GWENT sex offender and his wife were jailed yesterday for abducting their baby son from social services and fleeing the country last summer.

Gerald Baker from Brynmawr, and wife Helene from Blaenavon, took their son Nathan from the care of Blaenau Gwent social services in August after spending four months plotting the abduction, Newport crown court heard.

Gerald Baker, 46, was jailed for 21 months and his 38-year-old wife Helene - who at an earlier court hearing revealed she was pregnant - was sentenced to 12 months after they pleaded guilty to child abduction. David Webster, prosecuting, accused the couple of "absolutely deceiving the department of social services" by their actions.

Mr Webster revealed: That the Bakers pretended they had separated so Helene could get unsupervised access to Nathan.

Helene applied for a passport for Nathan in April and duped a former teacher at her Brecon convent school into counter-signing a photograph of Nathan.

In May, Gerald Baker was asking his local job centre about getting restaurant work in Spain and took a post in a cafe in Ebbw Vale the following month.

The court heard that Gerald Baker had a string of convictions for indecent assaults and other sexual offences stretching back into the 1970s and was on the sexual offenders register after indecently assaulting two boys in Bournemouth in 1998.

Mr Webster said that when Helene Baker (nee Richards) fell pregnant in February 2002, concerns were immediately raised by social services over her husband's offending and the baby was taken into care two days after he was born on Christmas Eve, 2002.

The court heard that the couple were initially allowed supervised access and when Helene told social services that she and Gerald Baker had separated she was allowed one hour unsupervised access.

Mr Webster revealed that police inquiries showed Gerald Baker was taking time off work at the same time as his wife's unsupervised visits and there was evidence the couple were in regular contact.

"If the separation was genuine, then it was certainly very short," said Judge Christopher Llewellyn Jones, QC.

On August 18 authorities became suspicious when Mrs Baker failed to return the child within the allotted time and called the police, sparking a manhunt which lasted over a month.

The couple were eventually tracked down on the border of Spain and Gibraltar where they were arrested.

Mr Webster stressed that the abduction was not sexually motivated and that when the child was found he was in good health.

Peter Heywood, defending Gerald Baker, said: "There is a reluctance to accept the degree of planning involved."

Elizabeth McCullum, defending Helene Baker, urged the court to be lenient, saying: "I would submit that losing a child in the circumstances is significant punishment in itself."

The judge said: "It is plain to me that there was a degree of planning in what you did."

He ordered that the Bakers serve half their sentences in custody and half on licence.

The judge banned Gerald Baker from working with children. He added that he did not consider Helene Baker posed any risk.