Former Granada Reports weatherman Fred Talbot has today been jailed for five years for indecently assaulting two boys while a teacher in Altrincham.
In front of a packed public gallery, Talbot was told he would be eligible for parole after two and a half years. The maximum term he could have received was 10 years.
Sentencing the Bowdon resident, Judge Timothy Mort told him that both victims had said in statements that they have been affected greatly.
Talbot showed no emotion as he was led from the dock down to the cells to begin his sentence.
His defence barrister, Suzanne Goddard QC, had told the court that prison had been an “unpleasant experience” for Talbot and that he had already lost a stone in weight.
Outside court, detective chief inspector Graham Brock said: “While working as a science teacher Fred Talbot organised many trips with pupils. It was during these trips that he plied boys with drink and orchestrated situations to be alone with his victims in order to indecently assault them to feed his own sexual desires.
“You can imagine the excitement of a teenage boy setting off on a canal trip with friends and a teacher, who he should expect to look after him, only to return with his childhood destroyed.
“Put simply, these offences reflect an abhorrent abuse of trust by a man who has proven to have no regard for the innocence of youth he was employed to nurture.”
Talbot, 65, was last month found guilty of molesting boys while working as a teacher at Altrincham Grammar School.
He was cleared of eight other indecent assault charges.
Watch as Talbot denies diary sex claims in three-minute police interview
The offences related to his time as a science teacher at Altrincham Grammar, where he worked between 1974 and 1984.
The court heard how, during the mid-70s, a boy of 14 or 15 was made to share a bed with Talbot on a school trip on a canal boat, and was indecently assaulted by Talbot.
Below: Fred Talbot’s police mugshot
It’s now been revealed that the victim first reported the crime to police in 1992. Talbot was interviewed and denied the offence, and due to a lack of corroborative evidence no further action was taken.
In 1977 another victim, who was 14 or 15 at the time, went on another school trip on a canal barge. One evening Talbot got into the boy’s bed naked and sexually assaulted him.
Detective Constable Chris Doggart said: “Talbot was an extremely popular and well liked individual – both as a celebrity weatherman and formerly as a science teacher – who earned not only the trust and adulation of many of his peers and pupils, but also much of the nation.
“Now he has been exposed as an opportunistic sex offender and that reputation is rightly in tatters.
“Even when he was not committing offences against the two vulnerable young boys, his behaviour was wholly inappropriate and so far removed from his duty as a teacher to nurture and safeguard those under his care it really does defy belief.”
Read Talbot’s damning diaries as it’s revealed he left Altrincham Grammar for propositioning boys
Below: Pictures of Talbot on canal trips during his time as a teacher at Altrincham Grammar
