Roy Clarke, 79, was a predatory paedophile who targeted at least eight children whom he met while working as an Amateur Swimming Association county coach in Leicester.

He would visit swimming clubs and leisure centres in the city, where he gave advice to other coaches and also taught children in private lessons.

After gaining the children’s trust he would abuse them. Most of his victims, whom he attacked after taking them to his home, were aged between 5 and 10. While five women and three men have come forward to tell of his attacks while they were children, it is feared that the total targeted by Clarke is considerably higher.

The police investigation began last August when a woman came forward and said that she had been attacked when she was a child. After hearing about the investigation, more victims came forward. Four contacted police after seeing the publicity surrounding Clarke’s first court appearance.

They told how Clarke carefully “groomed” them, gaining their trust with apparent “extreme kindness”, Leicester Crown Court was told. He would then lure them to his home where they could earn pocket money for doing odd jobs. Clarke went on to attack them, show them pornographic films and then buy their silence with cash and sweets.

The pensioner, who appeared in a wheelchair because of chronic ill health, pleaded guilty to 16 counts of indecency with five girls and three boys, all under 16. Two of the charges related to indecency with two girls in the 1940s, but the the most recent offence was in 1998. He denied a further 11 charges, which were ordered to lie on file.

Sentencing Clarke to 12 years in prison, Judge Christopher Plunkett told him: “For a period of more than 50 years you preyed on young, vulnerable children — five, six, seven and eight years old and sometimes a little older. In a premeditated way you won their trust and the community’s trust, but you did so in a way in which you could indulge in your vile desires.”

Clarke was also placed on the sex offenders register for life.His barrister, Ebrahim Mooncey, said that Clarke, who claims that he was abused as a child, had no friends or family and realised there was little prospect he would ever leave prison.

Detective Inspector Lee Hill said: “Clarke is a predatory paedophile who carried out calculated, systematic and sickening abuse of children for his own gratification.”

Mr Hill went on to praise Clarke’s victims who had come forward to report their trauma. He added: “I am convinced that there are other people out there who may have been abused by this man. All of the offences to which he pleaded guilty took place at his home address on Duncan Road. It is not too late for people to come forward and tell us about it. We are committed to both victim and witness welfare.” Clarke was a coach for the Leicester Amateur Swimming Association and taught at Aylestone Baths and Vestry Road Baths, both in Leicester.

The ASA said yesterday that Clarke, who also coached for Knighton Fields Swimming Club, had not worked as a coach for the past 30 years.

A spokesman added that new child-protection policies were introduced by the association in 1996, but no such measures were in place when Clarke was coaching.

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