Former TV weatherman Fred Talbot denies claims he molested schoolboys

● Says ‘nothing happened’ during school camping trips to Scotland

TV weatherman Fred Talbot has denied claims he molested schoolboys during camping trips to Scotland.

Talbot, 67, is on trial at Lanark Sheriff Court accused of indecently assaulting nine boys during trips between 1978 and 1981.

The former This Morning star has told a jury he was left “hurt” by claims he plied teenagers with alcohol before attempting to molest them as they returned to tents.

Under questioning from defence lawyer Alan Gravelle, Talbot said his media career began in 1976 and led to him presenting the weather on This Morning with Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan in the 1990s.

He said he had been a biology teacher at a grammar school in the Manchester area and regularly took pupils on school trips to Moffat, Dumfriesshire, and the Caledonian Canal in Inverness.

He said he shared tents with pupils but insisted nothing was ever said about him doing so.

He dismissed earlier claims from alleged victims that he had told boys to bring alcohol on the trips he organised.

He said: “I was enthusiastically involved with these trips. On the camping trips, there were maybe three or four people to a tent and I just mixed in and there was never any adverse reaction to that. We used to go on the camping trips in autumn and winter so I didn’t see much undress. It was that cold the clothes that we wore were the same for the whole trip and the only thing that came off at night was the boots to get into the sleeping bag.

“It is absolute rubbish to suggest that I would say to someone to bring rum and I just wouldn’t have said it. I’m just hurt by these allegations because nothing happened. It might sound daft but I really, really, liked these lads and stayed friends with some of them after school and they said nothing until all of this. It just didn’t happen and I don’t know what else to say really.”

Talbot told the court he had hidden his homosexuality while teaching at the school but said it later became public knowledge.

The trial before Sheriff Nikola Stewart continues.