A sex offender has been banned from leaving his home at night and contacting woman after a legal move by Police Scotland.

Robert Dills, who was placed on the sex offenders' register for ten years for performing a solo sex act in public, is only allowed out of his house during daylight hours after losing a civil case against the force.

Dills, 57, was branded "disgusting" and "despicable" by a sheriff when he was jailed for the offence, which was committed in front of members of the public, last year.

He has now had new conditions imposed following a ruling by Sheriff James Spy at Paisley Sheriff Court. The sheriff granted a six-month order which bans Dills from approaching or contacting loan females or women he knows to be prostitutes.

Dills was also made the subject of a curfew which forces him to remain within his home in Paisley, Renfrewshire, between 10pm and 6am.

The order was granted on Monday, 24 hours before he was due to be released from Low Moss Prison. He had earlier been returned to custody for breaking a night time curfew imposed when he was released early from the jail term he was given last year.

He denied repeatedly performing sex acts on himself and tried to blaming it on his Parkinson's Disease, claiming he'd been having hand tremors in his lap on the three occasions people thought they'd seen him pleasuring himself.

However, he was convicted following a trial and was jailed for a year. After he was released early due to good behaviour, he was arrested by police after allegedly following a woman and terrorising her and her friend late at night.

He denied pursuing Simone Lemos De Moraes through the streets then banging on a window and door, placing her and friend Jaceline Suarez in a state of fear and alarm, on November 15 last year.

He was also accused of banging on the windows and door of a property in the town's Walker Street, leaving De Moraes and Suarez scared.

Dills, however, walked free when Crown Office prosecutors dropped the case because the women disappeared. One of the women went to London, the other fled to Spain, and neither could be tracked down.

A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: "Protecting the public is our top priority. We work in partnership with a number of agencies through Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) to ensure that all Registered Sex Offenders are robustly managed within the community using a range of measures to proactively manage offenders including surveillance, electronic tagging, curfews and civil orders which impose conditions on offenders such as who they can contact, where they can go and access and use of the internet.

"MAPPA partners manage the risk posed by offenders who have come through the judicial and criminal justice system, who are required to comply with the notification requirements placed on them by the Sexual Offences Act 2003."