A 'bully and a pervert' who sexually abused and assaulted youngsters while he was the boss of a Warwickshire children's home in the 1970s has been jailed for a total of nine years.

Robert Brown had been found guilty by a jury At Warwick Crown Court of 14 charges of indecently assaulting boys at the Manor Court Road Children's Home in Nuneaton.

Brown, 69, who lived at the children's home at the time, but now of Eastern Avenue, Caister, was also convicted of four charges of cruelty to one of those boys and to three others.

After allowing him to go home over the weekend to 'put his house in order,' recorder Gareth Evans QC jailed him for nine years and ordered him to register as a sex offender for life.

Brown was given consecutive 21-month sentences in relation to each of the four boys he sexually abused, with further six-month consecutive terms for each of the cruelty charges.

Jailing Brown, recorder Evans told him: 'You are 69 years of age, and physically you are but a shadow of your former self.

'But 40 years ago you were a giant of a man who was the master of all he surveyed, in charge of a children's home.

'Those children were vulnerable, and did not have the normal family network to support them. Sadly, you were the replacement for their parents. It was a position of trust, and you abused that trust.

'You were no surrogate father, you were a bully and a pervert. You presided over an ethos where some of those children were badly-treated and abused.'