Dewsbury Moor youth club manager found guilty of child sex assaults

Jurors at Leeds Crown Court found Gary Hoodless guilty of seven counts of sexual offences against the boys, including buggery, indecent assault on a male and indecency with a child.

The father of three, of Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor, assaulted the boys when he was a teenager in the late 1980s.

During his trial, the jury was told Hoodless abused the boys, who were both under 11, as they watched TV with him.

He threatened them with a stick kept in the kitchen cupboard if they suggested telling anyone.

The offences took place between September 1986 and June 1987 when Hoodless was living in Birstall.

The offences stopped when one of the boys complained to his mother and the family moved away. The police were notified and the boys were examined but nothing was found and no action was taken against the teenage Hoodless.

Earlier this week, the court heard how Hoodless was a dedicated community volunteer who ran the Moorside Minors youth group.

And last week, one of the victims told the court he had tried to take his own life six times and had been on anti-depressants for nine year.

In a police interview played to the court, the man, who is now in his 30s, said he had found it hard to trust people.

He said: “I used to have counselling and I have been told to block a lot of it out because it was affecting me.”

He added: “We were so young and so little there was nothing we could do to stop it. He was much bigger than me, and stronger.”

Hoodless, 41, denied all the charges made against him, saying they were deliberately fabricated lies.

The jury found Hoodless not guilty of thirteen other sexual assault charges, included five other charges against the same boys. He was also found not guilty of abusing another boy in the early 1990s.

Hoodless will be sentenced on April 7.