A FORMER Ayrshire football coach who inflicted a 19-year reign of sexual terror over boys, including the rape of one young player, has been jailed.

Russell Conn, who managed teams for more than 26 years in Ayrshire, targeted teenagers when they were alone.

The 59-year-old from Stevenston “groomed and abused” three boys between 1995 and 2014, leaving them “deeply damaged”. 

Conn, who also worked as a delivery driver and a painter and decorator, abused two of the boys in his work vans.

At the High Court in Glasgow on Thursday, Conn was jailed for nine years.

His crimes took place in various locations across Ayrshire, including the B780 near the Munnoch reservoir in Dalry, a layby on the B741 Dalmellington-Straiton road, in a vehicle parked at Stevenston Point car park, on a road close to Kilwinning fire station, and at an address in Stevenston.

The court heard Conn earned the boys' trust and had sexual conversations with them before the attacks. 

READ MORE: Russell Conn: Ayrshire football coach guilty of rape, sexual abuse

The jury was told he was guilty of “the grooming and manipulation and sexual abuse of teenage boys” and would often give victims money as well as cigarettes.

Conn denied he’d done anything wrong. 

But at the High Court in Paisley in November, a jury unanimously convicted him of one charge of rape and four of sexual assault.

At Thursday's sentencing hearing at the High Court in Glasgow, judge Andrew Cubie told Conn: “You were convicted of deliberate, calculated sexual abuse of three young men.

“Their evidence was powerful about their shame, their experiences and effect it had on them.

“The offences were motivated by your own sexual appetite and sexual satisfaction. 

“You express no remorse, understanding or empathy for the wrongdoing you have done, or harm you have caused.

“You were able to carry on your own life while the victims suffered the consequences of your actions and you avoided justice into your seventies. 

“Society has a repugnance to such crimes and the court must reflect that.”

Conn was put on the sex offenders register indefinitely. 

His first victim, now aged 42, blamed himself for the abuse and said he had planned to die without ever revealing what had happened. 

He said he “buried” what happened to him and “withdrew” into his “shell”, adding: “I had made peace with myself and thought I’d take it to my grave with me.

“I put it in a wee box at the back of my head, but there’s barely been a day gone by where I’ve not thought about it.” 

His second victim tried to kill himself within seconds of being forced on to a couch and abused in Conn’s home.

Now a 27-year-old dad of three, he is unable to hold down a job because of mental health problems and struggles to go to the toilet due to the abuse.

And Conn's third victim, now 23, was discharged from the armed forces and spent time in a mental hospital after revealing what had happened to him. 

Geoffrey Forbes, defending, told the sentencing hearing that his client, a father of two, continues to protest his innocence.