Former TV weatherman Fred Talbot to be sentenced for sex offences
Talbot was convicted of a string of sex offences against schoolboys more than 35 years ago
Former TV weatherman Fred Talbot is to be sentenced today after being convicted of a string of sex offences against schoolboys more than 35 years ago.
The 67-year-old indecently assaulted seven teenage boys in his care during camping and boating trips in the 1970s and 1980s while working as a biology teacher at a school in the Manchester area.
During a nine-day trial at Lanark Sheriff Court last month, Talbot, of Greater Manchester, denied the allegations.
A jury took four hours over two days to convict the predator of seven of the nine historical abuse charges against him.
Talbot is already serving a five-year sentence imposed in Manchester in 2015 for indecently assaulting two other schoolboys.
Sheriff Nikola Stewart will sentence him for the fresh convictions at Lanark Sheriff Court on Thursday.
The television personality, who regularly appeared on a floating weather map in Liverpool's Albert Dock for ITV's This Morning show for several years, sat impassively when convicted on May 25.
It followed days of "overwhelming and compelling'' evidence against Talbot, including from Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown and a witness appearing over a video link from Australia.
The offences, against boys aged 15 to 17, took place between 1978 and 1981 during separate trips near the St Mary's Loch area in Moffat, Dumfries and Galloway, and the Caledonian Canal, Inverness in the Highlands.
A series of witnesses, now men in their 50s who cannot be named for legal reasons, told of their excitement at going on the excursions - sometimes the first time away from their parents.
Many of them recalled how Talbot used his position to engineer situations to target those he should have been looking after.
The court heard the attacks could be at night when a victim was isolated or after they had consumed alcohol.
One man told of his "horror'' when he awoke - after being "singled out'' to go to the pub - to find Talbot touching him in a tent while partially-clothed.
Talbot was cleared of two charges - of indecent assault and lewd, indecent and libidinous practices - on not proven verdicts.
In 2015, Talbot was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of indecent assaults on two pupils from the same school and he was jailed for five years.
Those assaults happened on school canal barge trips in the Cheshire area in the mid-1970s