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Kynne Cameron/PA
Jailed

TV weatherman Fred Talbot sentenced to five years in prison for sexually abusing boys

Police said he plied the boys with alcohol on school trips when he was a teacher.

FORMER TELEVISION WEATHERMAN Fred Talbot has been sentenced to five years in prison for sexually abusing two boys while working as a teacher.

Talbot was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault against the two victims, who were abused during their adolescent years.

The offences occurred during his time as a science teacher, which preceded his stint as a celebrity weatherman, when he taught at Altrincham Grammar School for Boys in Manchester.

Both of the boys were assaulted during boat trips organised by Talbot in the 1970s and both were around 14 at the time.

Today, Detective Chief Inspector Graham Brock said that Talbot “plied boys with drink and orchestrated situations to be alone with his victims in order to indecently assault them to feed his own sexual desires”.

You can imagine the excitement of a teenage boy setting off on a canal trip with friends and a teacher, who he should expect to look after him, only to return with his childhood destroyed. Put simply, these offences reflect an abhorrent abuse of trust by a man who has proven to have no regard for the innocence of youth he was employed to nurture.

He added that protecting children is everyone’s responsibility and it is “crucial that we work together to identify individuals who prey on vulnerable children”.

Related: Well-known weatherman Fred Talbot found guilty of indecently assaulting two teenage boys>

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