BRYAN Davies, the predatory paedophile who went on the run and tried to kill himself during his trial for historic sex abuse has been jailed for a total of 22 years this afternoon.

Judge Huw Rees told Davies, who was 71 on the first day of his trial at Mold Crown Court, that he would be an old man when he was released, if ever.

Davies worked at the Eirianfa private children’s home in Llangollen in the 1970s, caring for some of the most vulnerable children of the day.

He pleaded not guilty but was convicted of a total of 15 offences against eight children, described by the judge as now broken men in their fifties whose lives had been blighted by his serious breach of trust.

Davies was convicted of illegal penetrative acts in respect of two of the victims and received 22 years for those – the remaining sexual offences and later offences of possessing pornographic images and inciting boys to do sex acts over Skype being concurrent.

He must register with the police as a sex offender for life.

During the trial Davies, of West Redhill in Surrey and formerly of Stryd Isa in Penycae, Wrexham, absconded and tried to commit suicide in a hotel in Folkstone, Kent.

He denied all charges and disappeared for six years after his first interview and had to be extradited from Malta to face trial in the first place.

Judge Rees said he had tried every procedural and evidential way to try to avoid justice.

But the judge said the time had come to sentence him for his “appalling and persistent sexual abuse of boys in his care”.

The later internet offences showed his continuing unhealthy interest in young teenage boys.

“You will reach advanced old age before you are released from prison, if at all,” the judge told him.

Six of the complainants were in court to see the sentence take place – along with some members of the jury who convicted him after a five week trial.

Officers from the National Crime Agency who investigated the case under Operation Pallial were commended for their work..

The judge said Davies was employed at the children’s home for 25 months from April 1976 to May 1978 when he committed a series of sexual assaults against eight of the boys in his care.

He lost his job when he admitted indecently assaulting two boys at Llangollen Magistrates Court at the time.

The vulnerability of the boys was beyond doubt, the judge said. They were among some of the most neglected and socially deprived young people of their time.

They were far away from their families and in an alien environment, the judge said.

“They had nowhere to call home. They didn’t know what a home life was other than that provided by the institution where they were sent.”

Judge Rees told Davies: “They were sent to your care and into the care of others.

"Some were physically abused by others including yourself and you sexually abused eight of them.

“They were young people who had nowhere to turn. They were not free to leave, effectively trapped.

"They had no escape from you.”

The judge said to some extent they “existed rather than lived” in the care home where they were used by his as sex objects – where he chose one over another without a moment’s thought for the serious of what he was doing or the effect upon his victims.

“It had a truly devastating effect,” said Judge Rees.

“Their lives, either in whole or in part, have been blighted by the offences you committed against them.”

No-one could not have been moved by their accounts.

One boy, for example, who had been subjected to a particularly harrowing sexual ordeal ran away from the home in his pyjamas.

He was aged between 13 and 15, and was “frightened, confused, alone and distressed”.

Davies, he said, presented as a powerful figure of authority to the boys.

His systematic and sustained abuse of young children in his care for his own sexual gratification had been a gross abuse of trust.

The victims were now broken men in their fifties and one had gone to his grave not knowing if justice would be served.

Davies, the judge said, had tried to pull the wool over the jury’s eyes with denials and allegations of conspiracies against him by the victims, but the jury had seen through him and his arrogance and rightly convicted him.

He fled to Malta, he deployed every legal and evidential means to pull holes in the victims’ testimony and then attempted to take his own life.

But justice had now caught up with him.