Former TV weatherman Fred Talbot jailed for sexually abusing boys on school trips

Former ITV weatherman Fred Talbot has been jailed for four years for a string historical sex offences against boys he took on school trips to Scotland.

The 67-year-old was convicted at Lanark Sheriff Court last month of seven charges of indecent assault against boys aged 15 to 17.

The disgusting attacks took place between 1978 and 1981 whilst Talbot was working as a biology teacher at a school in the Manchester area and took boys away on camping trips.

During the trial Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown, 54, gave harrowing evidence saying that he had never forgotten how Talbot invited one of his young friends to sleep in his tent during a school camping trip, reported the BBC.

Talbot was already serving a five-year sentence imposed in Manchester in 2015 for indecently assaulting two other schoolboys and his four-year sentence will begin on 14 August when his previous sentence ends.

The two offences occurred during two separate trips on two locations, one in Moffat, southern Scotland, and one on the Caledonian Canal in Inverness, on camping trips.

Sheriff Nikola Stewart said: "They were keen to go on the camping trips and sailing trips that you organised, both informally and as official school trips.

"That trust and affection was grossly abused by you on repeated occasions as you preyed upon these young boys - some away from home and away from parental care for the first time, and all utterly unsuspecting of the sexual threat you posed to them."

Talbot was once a presenter on This Morning informing viewers from a floating weather map in Liverpool's Albert Dock in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"By denying your guilt and insisting on a trial, you put each victim through further trauma," Sheriff Stewart said according to the Birmingham Mail.

"I note that whilst you report concern about the damage you have done it is far from clear to me whether the damage you refer to relates to your victims, or only the damage to your life and career.

"The only appropriate sentence in this case is a lengthy custodial sentence."

The victims are now in their 50s and one of them explained he was targeted by Talbot after a visit to the pub which had left him "very much the worse for wear".

Talbot was previously jailed at Manchester Crown Court in 2015 for the indecent assault of two 14-year-old boys whilst on boat trips in Cheshire.