A FORMER Scout leader who sexually assaulted a boy more than 40 years ago has been jailed for six years.

Roger Franklin, 66, was told at Oxford Crown Court he had blighted the life of his victim as he was jailed.

He was convicted in January of four counts of indecent assault between 1968 and 1970.

Franklin, of Ashdene Road, Bicester, seriously sexually assaulted the boy in a North Oxford bed and breakfast, touched him in his car, watched him shower and assaulted him on a camping trip.

The widower, who was a Scout leader in west Oxfordshire, has seven previous convictions for indecently assaulting boys under 13 in 1964 and 1968.

During the trial, his victim, now in his 50s, said: “These memories are ingrained in my soul and they will be until the day I die.”

Jonathan Coode, defending, said his client was now a hugely respected member of the community who volunteered at the Calibre Audio Library charity to provide audio books for the blind.

He said: “It’s 42 years – this man has led not a blameless life, but a life involving hard work, a marriage which sadly ended in widowhood, and, from the moment of his retirement, devotion to a charitable cause.”

Addressing Judge Mary Jane Mowat, he added: “Your Honour is dealing with somebody who had mixed-up sexual feelings back in the 1960s and had put all of that behind him.”

Franklin’s older brother David took the witness stand and said: “I’ve always found him the most honest, most reliable person I’ve met. The kindest person, the person who would go the furthest out of his way to help people.”

Judge Mowat said sentencing was a “virtually impossible” task but that Franklin had blighted the life of his victim.

She added: “His self-respect, his ability to relate to other people of both sexes, his outlook on life, according to him, have all been seriously adversely affected by what you did to him.

“You are clearly much loved and admired by the people who know you but I come back to the fact that your behaviour towards your victim has blighted his life.”