A SERIAL child sex abuser was behind bars for the first time tonight (Thursday February 11) after he was convicted of 29 offences against five boys and a girl.

Stanley Simpson was warned he could face a life sentence after a Durham Crown Court jury returned unanimous ‘guilty’ verdicts on all 29 charges, including three of rape, 20 of indecency or indecent assault and six other serious sexual offences with boys, over a 20 year period.

A former legal adviser at community advice centres, he committed the offences on victims, aged eight to 15, at his homes, in Pennywell, Sunderland, and Ouston, near Chester-le-Street, where he lived at different times between 1980 and 2000.

He was said to have used his “status” as a trusted, helpful community advisor, assisting clients in benefit and housing applications, to invite boys to what appeared to be a conventional, safe family home, with their parents’ blessing, and then, to subsequently remain undetected for many years, as his victims lived in fear of reporting what happened.

Simpson was said to have been “manipulative”, initially winning their trust and friendship, often buying them presents, offering them booze and tobacco before inviting them to stay over.

But, he gradually became more sinister, issuing threats if they were unwilling to do what he wanted, and he even punched one boy in the face when he refused to perform a sex act.

Despite previous allegations over his activities by individual victims in 2006 and 2013, it was only the following year that most of the abused, by then adults, came forward and police revisited earlier complainants.

The 50-year-old defendant, of Peniston Road, Pennywell, denied a total of 34 charges relating to seven alleged victims, prior to the trial starting last month.

After five hours’ deliberation, the jury foreman delivered verdicts on all but two of the charges - those being alternatives and a formal ‘not guilty’ verdict was returned on the judge’s directions to one of the counts.

But the jury was asked by Judge Simon Hickey to continue its deliberations tomorrow (Friday February 12) on two remaining unresolved counts, alleging the rape and indecent assault of what would be a second female victim, older than all the other complainants.

Remanding Simpson in custody, Judge Hickey told him: “On the findings already and, with these type of offences, all that awaits you is an extremely long sentence, and, I may have to consider a longer, extended sentence, even life.”