A FORMER social worker and Scout leader has been jailed for seven years for sex offences against two boys.

Robin Hall, 76, indecently assaulted a boy then aged between 13 and 15, from 1978 to 1980.

He assaulted the second boy, aged between 11 and 14, from 1999 to 2001.

The retired man, of St Mary’s Close, Littlehampton, was sentenced at Chichester Crown Court having been found guilty after a six-day trial.

He was convicted of three indecent assaults against the first boy and of four indecent assaults against the second.

The offences took place at Hall’s address, except for one of the assaults against the second boy which took place on a weekend caravanning trip.

He was found not guilty of a fifth charge of indecent assault on the second boy, and was also found not guilty of a charge of indecent assault on another boy, then aged 14, in 1994 at a Scout camping site in Partridge Green.

He was given a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) to last until a further court order, severely restricting his access to children, and will be a registered sex offender for life.

Hall had been a social worker with West Sussex County Council in the 1970s.

He took the first boy into his home as a foster child and systematically sexually abused him for 18 months. This only stopped when the boy went to a children’s home.

Hall befriended his other victim through the boy’s family, and again subjected him to regular sexual abuse until his family moved away from the area in 2001.

Detective Constable Angela De Vivo, of the West Sussex Safeguarding Investigations Unit, said: “This was a complex investigation in which we had to put together evidence about offences spanning a quarter of a century.

“Hall is clearly a man with a particular sexual interest in boys on the edge of adolescence, and he has committed many acts of sexual abuse against these victims over this period.

“He worked in positions of authority in different roles, as social worker and Scout leader, which gave him access to young boys, and he abused the trust placed in him in relation to his role as a social worker with the first victim.

“We are glad to have been able to finally bring him to justice and we recognise the courage of the two victims who after all this time were ready to give evidence and face cross-examination.

“I hope that this outcome will help to give them some sense of closure about these distressing experiences.”