Weatherman Talbot abused seven boys on camping trips
DISGRACED TV weatherman Fred Talbot was convicted yesterday of sexually abusing boys on camping and boat trips to Scotland when he was a teacher.
The paedophile indecently assaulted seven teenagers in his care during trips for pupils at a prestigious grammar school in Manchester more than 35 years ago.
Talbot, 67, left the school after a pupil complained, but then found fame in the Eighties leaping around a floating weather map of Britain on ITV’s This Morning programme with Richard and Judy.
But two years ago, he was unmasked as a sexual predator when he was jailed for five years for sexually assaulting two boys at Altrincham Grammar School.
Following his arrest more victims came forward and yesterday he was convicted of further indecent assaults after a second trial at Lanark Sheriff Court in Scotland. The court heard Talbot preyed on youngsters aged 15 to 17 during trips to St Mary’s Loch in Moffat, Dumfries and Galloway, and the Caledonian Canal in Inverness between 1978 and 1981.
The young biology teacher befriended impressionable boys who were away from their parents for the first time, talking to them about music, alcohol and sex and encouraging them to drink large amounts of beer in the pub.
One said he was assaulted as a teenager after drinking eight pints and whisky. He told of his horror when he awoke in his tent to find Talbot touching him.
Another former schoolboy now living in Australia recalled how he awoke in his tent to find Talbot making sexual advances.
Stone Roses singer Ian Brown, 54, who was not abused, also told the court how Talbot tried to molest his friend in a tent during a camping trip they all took with other pupils. One victim said he punched Talbot during an excursion in around 1979 after the teacher tried to sexually assault him when he was 15.
He said: ‘The instinctive reaction was to put my hand up and strike him under his chin to knock him off me. It was enough to knock his head up and back. I felt shock, revulsion and horror.’
Talbot was forced to leave the school after a complaint in 1984 and began a career as a weather forecaster, working on This Morning for ten years.
Detective Inspector Bryan Lee said the sexual predator ‘ hid behind a mask of respectability’.
Talbot, who denied the charges, will be sentenced in three weeks.