A FORMER teacher, who has served two prison sentences for child sexual abuse, told a jury he had been a “deviant” who had corrupted one of his victims.

But David Cole insisted he was innocent of new allegations.

Cole, 57, is on trial at Bradford Crown Court for the alleged sexual abuse of a boy over a six-year period when he lived in the Keighley area in the 1990s.

He has denied ten charges of indecent assault and three of raping the boy. The offences are alleged to have begun when the boy was aged six.

The prosecution claim Cole started by indecently touching the boy, but he “became emboldened” to commit further, more serious offences against him, leading to the three rapes when the boy was 11.

The alleged victim, who is now in his early 30s, told police he became isolated, lonely and depressed when he realised something was wrong, and described Cole as a predator.

Giving evidence yesterday, grey-haired, bespectacled Cole admitted he had been sentenced in 2001 after pleading guilty to gross indecency with a 14-year-old boy and supplying him with Ecstasy and cannabis. He also agreed to pleading guilty in 2013 to offences of indecent assault and gross indecency involving a 13-year-old boy in Bournemouth.

He said he had resigned as a head of department physics teacher when the 2001 offences came to light.

The defendant said the offences against the second boy were committed after they met via Facebook. He told the jury: “I not only abused him but...I corrupted him.”

He described his urges towards teenage boys as “deviant” but told the jury how he had been on extensive sexual offenders treatment programmes, both in prison and since being released from his sentences.

Cole, now of Durrant Road, Poole, Dorset, said he was a churchgoer but could only attend services where children were not present. He denied ever sexually abusing the boy in the new allegations.