Ex-Peterborough United football coach Bob Higgins jailed for 24 years for sexual abuse
Paedophile coach Bob Higgins has been jailed for 24 years and three months for sexually abusing schoolboy football players during a 25-year period.
The 66-year-old, who ran the youth training programmes at Southampton and Peterborough football clubs, was found guilty of 46 counts of indecent assault against a total of 24 teenage boys between 1971 and 1996.
Sentencing Higgins at Winchester Crown Court, Judge Peter Crabtree said he was "predatory, cunning and manipulative" and used sexualised behaviour to "normalise" the abuse he carried out.
As well as the prison sentence, Higgins was ordered to sign the sex offenders' register and was also banned from working with children and made subject to a supervision order on his release.
The judge told him: "A number of the boys idolised you and were prepared, and did, anything to further their dreams of becoming a professional footballer."
Judge Crabtree added that Higgins "carefully groomed" the boys by giving them gifts such as football shirts signed by professional players and trips tofootball matches.
He continued: "You encouraged many of them to treat you as a father figure.
For a number of boys who were brought up without a father and were vulnerable, this had a profound effect."
Praising the victims for their "courage and fortitude", the judge told
Higgins: "The only person who should feel shame and guilt is you", adding:"You show not one jot of remorse."
The defendant, who wore a hearing aid during proceedings, sat impassively and showed no emotion as the sentence was announced.<
The impact statements of the 24 victims were read to the first part of thesentencing hearing on Tuesday.
One victim said: "Bob Higgins said he loved me and would make me a star, I had a dream of being a footballer, you created a nightmare that I still live to this day.
"You sexually and mentally abused me - behind a mask of affection, you created a conveyor belt of abuse."