Talbot admits sex assault for the first time

FORMER TV weatherman Fred Talbot told a man ‘just close your eyes and pretend I’m your girlfriend’ after he woke up to find him sexually assaulting him.

Talbot, 67, tried to block the man from leaving and then bit him in the neck, leaving a ‘love bite,’ a Minshull Street Crown Court sentencing hearing was told.

But the victim kept his silence for years – believing the incident was ‘his fault’ because he had worn a dress to Talbot’s home for a fancy dress party.

Talbot, 67, is serving nine years in prison for a string of sex assaults, including against former pupils of his at Altrincham Grammar School for Boys in the 1970s. Now he has been jailed for another eight months for the attack on the man at his home in 1980, which came after Talbot invited him to the fancy dress party.

The former This Morning weatherman appeared at court via videolink from HMP Wymott in Lancashire.

The court heard that the victim regularly drank at the Stamford Arms pub in Bowdon, Altrincham, where Talbot was a regular. He was invited to the party at Talbot’s Bowdon home, where he was sexually assaulted while sleeping.

The man was woken up by Talbot performing a sex act on him, prosecutor Neil Usher said. Talbot, well known for presenting forecasts from a large floating map of the British Isles at the Albert Dock in Liverpool, told him: “It’s okay, just close your eyes and pretend I am your girlfriend.”

The man immediately protested and tried to leave, initially being blocked off by Talbot who then left a ‘love bite’ after biting him on the neck.

Mr Usher said the man reported the incident to police after seeing publicity following Talbot’s previous convictions. In a statement, the victim said: “I never told anyone about what happened and always felt it was my fault for wearing a dress to the fancy dress party and staying out.”

After being interviewed about the allegations last year, Talbot initially claimed he had been in a consensual relationship with the victim, a claim denied by the prosecution.

Mr Usher said the victim wanted an acknowledgement of what happened during the incident from Talbot, and was initially ‘not particularly interested’ in the matter proceeding to court. Guy Gozem QC, defending, said Talbot’s offending ended 35 years ago, and that there has been no repeat offending since. He said as a consequence of being imprisoned, Talbot has ‘lost his freedom, his career, his savings and, as he sees it, his future.’ Talbot has also lost four stone, Mr Gozem said. Currently his earliest release date is August 2019, by which time he will be in his 70s.

Mr Gozem said Talbot wants to make a public apology for the ‘suffering’ the victim has endured. Sentencing Talbot to eight months in prison for one count of indecent assault, Judge John Potter said: “This was gross and serious sexual exploitation of a victim who at the time was asleep and considerably younger than you.”

The case is the first time that Talbot has pleaded guilty to his offending.

The judge added that during the 1970s and 1980s Talbot was a ‘sexual predator who exploited the vulnerabilities of others far younger than you for the purposes of your own sexual gratification.’ Talbot’s sexual assault victim