A FORMER care home boss has been convicted of eight counts of historical sex abuse against five young boys.

John Allen, 78, showed no emotion as a jury at Mold Crown Court delivered its verdicts on the previously convicted paedophile, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 for sexually assaulting 19 other youngsters under his care during a campaign of abuse spanning decades.

The jury, which took four days of deliberations to reach its verdicts, cleared Allen of 12 other counts of abuse among the 20 current charges he faced.

The eight convictions relate to five new victims of Allen’s reign of terror while running the Bryn Alyn Community of residential care homes in the Wrexham area providing accommodation for children sent from a dozen local authorities.

Prosecuting barrister, Eleanor Laws QC, said during the trial that Allen committed the offences when he was in his late 30s and 40s.

She described the predator as possessing a “a formidable presence” at the homes he owned and children said even staff were both frightened and intimidated by him.

Ms Laws said: “The children were often placed into care when their own families could no longer cope with them. They were often troubled and highly vulnerable.

“Allen used these homes for his own sexual pleasure and once in the homes, the children were perfect targets. If they ever made complaints about what had happened to them they were often ignored or disbelieved.”

Allen subjected his victims to “horrific” abuse, often taking risks of being discovered when carrying out assaults in his car and office.

Allen denied all 20 counts laid against him before a trial which lasted five weeks.

But he was convicted of one count of attempted buggery and seven of indecent assault against boys aged from 13 to 16 years old; seven of the verdicts were by majority decisions and only one, a count of indecent assault, was unanimous.

Allen was cleared of nine counts of indecent assault, two of buggery and one of attempted buggery.

All the offences took place in Allen’s care homes between 1976 and 1984, and the court heard that one of the complainants died of a drug overdose in 2016.

Ms Laws said: “Allen is a predatory paedophile with a sexual interest in young boys and this is something he completely denies to this day.”

The court heard Allen had already been convicted of the abuse of boys in 1995 and was found guilty of sexual abuses against 18 young men and one girl in 2014.

Judge Rhys Rowlands said that personal impact statements would be prepared for all of Allen’s new victims before he is sentenced at Mold on January 8 next year.