TV weatherman is guilty of abusing boys on camp trips
TV WEATHERMAN Fred Talbot was branded a “sexual predator” after he was yesterday convicted of abusing boys on camping trips.
Talbot, 67, is already serving a sentence for historic sex crimes but a jury found him guilty of seven charges of attacks between 1978 and 1981.
The former This Morning forecaster was a biology teacher in Manchester. He abused boys, aged from 15 to 17, after they had been drinking.
The assaults took place on trips to Moffat in Dumfriesshire and at the Caledonian Canal near Inverness.
Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown, 54, was not one of the alleged victims but he gave evidence saying that he had “waited 40 years” to tell the world that Talbot was an abuser.
He told how Edinburgh-born Talbot had attempted to carry out a sex act on his friend by inviting him into a tent where he tried to molest him.
Another victim, now 53, claimed that he punched Talbot after being woken up by him as he attempted to sexually assault him under canvas.
He said: “My initial reaction was one of horror and the instinctive reaction was to put my hand up and strike him under his chin. It was enough to knock his head up and back.”
During the two-week trial at Lanark Sheriff Court the jury had not been told that Talbot, who denied the charges, was serving five years for indecent assaults on two pupils.
Talbot was jailed in 2015 for offences on trips in 1975 and 1976.
The investigation in Scotland was triggered in December 2012 after publicity about another abuse case.
Talbot showed no emotion as the verdicts were read out and will be sentenced next month. Charges relating to an alleged assault on a 12-year-old were not proven.
Detective Inspector Bryan Lee, senior investigating officer, said: “Fred Talbot is a sexual predator who hid behind a mask of respectability.”