Santa Claus has slammed online Santa-tracking systems which allow children to follow his sleigh’s progress as it flies around the globe on Christmas Eve, saying it is costing him a fortune to escape detection. North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) is tracking Santa’s trip for the 50th time this Christmas. NORAD uses radar, satellites, fighter jets and high-tech webcams to follow Santa over North America and throughout the world.

But Santa has had enough.

“I’m generally regarded as a pretty jolly guy - just ask anyone. But this tracking stuff has really got my goat,” the big man in red said in an exclusive interview with the Ripper.

Santa says that as NORAD’s tracking measures have become more sophisticated, he has had to go to ever-more extremes to remain undetected.

“I’ve had the elves build two extra sleighs and we’ve trained up a couple of extra reindeer teams so that we can fly decoys on Christmas Eve,” Mr Claus said.

“We’ve actually taken a leaf out of the Secret Service book and just like President Bush’s Air Force One, my sleigh never takes off on its own. Instead, we launch all three sleighs at once, heading in different directions, in order to throw these bloody NORAD chaps off the scent.

“They think they’re just having a bit of fun but it’s costing me an absolute fortune.”

Santa has also gone high-tech in his bid to keep his fly-by-night Christmas Eve missions secret.

“We take all sorts of gadgets on the sleigh with us now - and not just to give to kids and their technophile parents as gifts,” he revealed. “We’ve also got devices which block the operation of any digital cameras, especially webcams which may have been set up to catch me red-handed.

“We’ve also had to implement a new satellite navigation system, which quite frankly didn’t please Rudolph too much. He’s really sensitive about his role guiding the sleigh and he’s been in quite a sulk ever since we bought that GPS Navman.”

But US defence officials have hit back at Santa, saying that Osama bin Laden has managed to escape their efforts to find him, “so Santa really shouldn’t have too many problems”.

NORAD’s Santa tracking site is available at: http://www.noradsanta.org