A FORMER house parent at a Merseyside care home convicted of sexually abusing four boys, one now a Darwen man, has been jailed for 12 years.

A jury at Liverpool Crown Court found Basil Williams-Rigby, 54, guilty of 22 charges, but acquitted him of offences against four other boys.

Williams-Rigby was cleared of 16 charges and not guilty verdicts on nine other charges were returned on the direction of the judge.

Williams-Rigby, of Keswick Road, Dentons Green, St Helens, had denied all 47 charges, which involved allegations of serious sexual assault, indecent assault, gross indecency, taking indecent photographs and child cruelty against boys aged between 11 and 15.

He was ordered to register under the Sex Offenders Act for life.

During the trial, the court heard that Williams-Rigby systematically abused the boys at the flat in the main building he occupied with his wife and family. Williams-Rigby was employed at the home, which cannot be identified for legal reasons, from March 1975 to November 1984.

David Aubrey, QC, prosecuting, said that Williams-Rigby abused the vulnerable boys for his sexual gratification in what was, as far as Williams-Rigby was concerned, "a den of abuse." They were now all adults, he said.

The Darwen man, whose abuse between the ages of 12 and 15 involved being seriously sexually assaulted by Williams-Rigby, broke down in tears as he told how he had ended up in the home after his parents abandoned him.

Asked what had made him make a statement last year, he said: "Because I was told he was still working with children and I didn't want to put them through it."

He said he had not said anything before "because I thought I was dirty and I thought it was all my fault. I wanted to forget."

The man said he had applied for compensation money "to give my daughter the life I didn't have."

Williams-Rigby was arrested in December 1997, as a result of Operation Care, Merseyside police's ongoing investigation into allegations of child abuse at children's homes.

Williams-Rigby, who called several defence witnesses, including his wife, Diane, and other house parents, claimed the eight boys, who are now adults, were lying.

Lord Alex Carlile QC, defending, said that Williams-Rigby was a man of previous good character.

He was aware that if convicted he faced a long sentence of imprisonment.

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