A retired North Wales police chief has been jailed for 12 years for historical child sex offences.

Former Superintendent Gordon Anglesea, 79, was found guilty of four counts of indecent assault between 1982 and 1987 against two boys, both aged 14 or 15 at the time.

Anglesea had denied the charges, claiming he was a victim of a "conspiracy" and that the two complainants were seeking compensation.

But Mold Crown Court heard the father-of-five, from Colwyn Bay, had used his position and connections with authority to molest his two young victims.

He evaded justice for 30 years and at one point brought a libel case against several media organisations, winning damages of £375,000.

Today there were cheers and claps from the public gallery as Judge Geraint Walters passed sentence, telling Anglesea he was "beyond reproach".

During a six-week trial, the jury heard Anglesea ran an attendance centre in Wrexham in the 1980s when he was a police inspector.

Teenage boys convicted of petty crime would be given a "short, sharp, shock" of military-style physical training, marches and parade sessions, along with woodwork classes on Saturday afternoons.

Anglesea would "inspect" the parade, make the youngsters do naked sit-ups and squat thrusts, then loiter around the showers "with a smirk on his face".

The jury heard it was here that three of the assaults took place, against one boy who was "last back to the showers" after a cross-country run.

The other victim said he was assaulted by Anglesea at a house in Mold, during which Anglesea called the boy "scum" and told him he had the "power to send him away".

Today, Judge Geraint Walters said of the victims: "Theirs was an existence, not a life."