A CATHOLIC priest who committed a series of sex crimes against a 12-year-old boy was last night starting a five-year jail sentence.

Father William Jacks, 49, who lives in Darlington, systematically abused the boy over four years.

Jacks, a former secretary to the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, admitted having a relationship with the boy but claimed nothing sexual happened between them until he was 16.

But after a five-day trial last month at Newcastle Crown Court the jury found that the relationship started when the youngster was only 12 years old.

Jailing him yesterday, Judge David Hodson told Jacks he had abused his trusted position within the community. The long tariff was inevitable because of the seriousness of the offences.

He said: "You were in a position of huge moral responsibility towards the victim of your offences.

"It is rightly assumed by people at large that a child in your company would be free from your sexual advances.

"As it was, you took advantage of a clearly vulnerable boy who was unsure of his sexuality."

The judge said that while Jacks had not coerced or forced the boy to perform sex acts, he had groomed his victim and engineered situations in which they could happen.

Father Jacks met the boy in the early 90s at his church in Gateshead, Tyneside. The court heard that Father Jacks then lured him into sordid sex games, including spanking, and even assaulted the boy in the toilet at the Bishop's home in Newcastle.

At his trial, his victim, now aged 26 and who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court he had idolised the cleric.

He said: "He was a friend a mentor, someone I respected."

The jury was told how a pattern of sexual attacks were carried out after Jacks first molested the boy following a game of squash with him.

The abuse happened over a four-year period in the Presbytery of St Patrick's in Gateshead after Mass on Sunday, in the lavatory at the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle's house and at Jacks' parents' home in Carmel Road South, Darlington.

Jacks, who was a solicitor in Darlington before entering the church, was a priest at St Joseph's Church in Rowlands Gill, Gateshead, when he was arrested and charged last year.

He was convicted of one charge of indecency with a child and three of indecent assault, and has been placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church, the Dean of Blaydon, Father Michael Hickey, said: "Obviously I am very sorry about how people have been affected. Our first thoughts are for the victim and his family.

"We feel a great deal of sympathy for them. They have obviously been through a horrendous time.

"Everybody is just shocked. You get to know priests in your area and as far as I was concerned he was a priest who very much cared for his parishioners."