Simeon Hope, also known as Gary Anderson, left Barrhead on Thursday last week as shocked parents started an online campaign to have him ousted from the Dalmeny council flat he lived in.

Convicted on three separate occasions of possession of indecent images of children over 14 years, the former teacher moved to the town this year from England, staying in council accommodation.

Eyewitnesses reported he loaded up a car of possessions and left between 6pm and 9pm on Thursday evening last week.

His departure was confirmed by a council source, who said: “He has been moved and he has gone for good.

“No one knows where he has been moved to.” The Barrhead News tracked Simeon Hope down to his address in the Dalmeny area of the town last week and photographed him walking down a street close to Neilston Cemetery.

A former Green Party candidate, Hope moved from County Durham to Derby after serving his first conviction in 2000 and is believed to have moved into Barrhead earlier this year.

During a previous court case, it emerged that the former teacher admitted during a police interview that he was sexually attracted to girls aged between eight and 12.

He also described people assigned to treat him as “fools” and bragged: “My strategy is to tell these lovely, caring people what they like to hear. I want to be regarded as low-risk so I can lead a more normal life.” Hope was jailed by a Derby Crown Court judge for nine months in 2010 after his third conviction, following previous jail sentences in 2000 and 2003 for similar offences.

In 1999 Hope, then known as Gary Anderson, was caught with more than 5,000 indecent images on a computer and three photo albums, for which he was jailed for 18 months.

After being released, he was then sentenced to another 18 months and disqualified from working with children for life after officers discovered 149 indecent images, again on a computer.

And in 2010, Anderson pleaded guilty in Derby Crown Court to eight counts of either making or possessing images of children. He was also made the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order.