ITV weatherman Fred Talbot ‘sexually assaulted school boy’ during barge trip

 
On trial: television weatherman Fred Talbot (Picture: Rex)
Standard Reporter23 January 2015
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A schoolboy was sexually assaulted by television weatherman Fred Talbot as he slept on a canal barge, a court heard.

The victim said he was forced to share a bed with the teacher because there were not enough beds provided for all the boys during the school trip.

Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard Talbot, 65, performed a sex act on him as they both lay naked.

Yesterday, the trial heard Talbot staged a naked "orgy" of drunken schoolboys on a school barge trip which he joined in before later sexually abusing another pupil in his bed on board.

Both incidents were said to have taken place in the mid-70s on events organised by Talbot who at the time taught biology at Altrincham Grammar School for Boys.

Five men allege that Talbot abused them when they were schoolboys - four of them were pupils at Altrincham while the other met Talbot while he was teacher training in the North East.

The third complainant to give evidence said today that Talbot had returned from the pub with older boys on the barge trip and was "drunk" but "not completely inebriated".

He said boys would take turns to sleep in Talbot's bed because there were not enough single beds for everyone.

When it was his turn he said he got into bed and recalled the defendant "started talking to me about sexual stuff".

Talbot then began to indecently assault him and the schoolboy told him to stop, the court was told.

The complainant - who thought he may have been aged 14 at the time - said the defendant persisted and he kept pulling Talbot's hand away.

He said: "I was a very naive child and I couldn't really understand it."

Years later Talbot went into television and became a regular on the floating weather map in Liverpool's Albert Dock for ITV's top-rating This Morning show.

He was also a regular weatherman on ITV's local North West station Granada Reports.

The complainant said when he was aged in his late 20s he wrote to the station to tell them Talbot had abused him.

He said: "I wrote an anonymous letter to Granada Reports but obviously they could not act on it.

"It was just to say that I had been sexually assaulted on an occasion by this man.

"I think I was a bit angry at the time."

The witness said he would often bump into Talbot in local pubs in the weatherman's home town of Bowdon, Greater Manchester, and the pair would have "idle chatter".

On one occasion he said he had a conversation while he was on a teacher training course.

He said: "He asked me whether I fancied any of the pupils and I said no."

Talbot denies 10 counts of indecent assault in relation to five complainants between the late 1960s and the early 1980s.

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