A FORMER swimming instructor has been convicted of committing serious sexual offences against three young boys.

Gary Froggatt, 56, carried out the offences from the early 1980s – one boy was aged six, another seven and the other eight.

Yesterday, after a jury at Derby Crown Court delivered its verdicts, Judge Andrew Hamilton told Froggatt he would be locked up for a very long time.

He said: "You have committed the most serious offences. You have clearly destroyed the lives of three young people, who you abused from a young age.

"You are facing a very long term of imprisonment."

After Froggatt left the dock, showing no emotion, the judge said he was clearly "a serious danger to young people".

He said it had been "harrowing" to see the three men giving evidence.

The jury had heard that Froggatt, of Ladywood Road, Kirk Hallam, had taken the boys to pools including Queen's Leisure Centre, in Derby, and Victoria Park Leisure Centre, in Ilkeston.

He had then taken them back to his home and sexually abused them.

One of the victims told the court he thought it was a game that everybody played and it was not until he was almost 13 that he realised that what had been happening to him was wrong.

But it was not until almost 20 years later, in 2008, that he and another victim went to police.

The man, whom Froggatt abused from the age of six onwards, wept as he gave evidence via video link in court.

The 33-year-old man, from Derby, said that Froggatt had given him £10 every time it happened and the activity continued until about 2004.

He told police that when he was about 13, Froggatt began asking him to perform sexual acts on him.

He said it made him feel "bad – really dirty".

The jury found Froggatt guilty of six charges of committing a serious sexual offence on a child, two of inciting a serious sexual offence and two of indecency with a child.

He was also found guilty of seven offences of indecent assault with a male person.

He was cleared of one charge of committing a serious sexual offence on a child, two of indecency with a child and two of indecent assault on a male person.

Froggatt, who denied all the charges, will be sentenced later this month.