TV weatherman Fred Talbot has been found guilty of indecently assaulting two schoolboys when he was a teacher.

Talbot, aged 65, a regular on the floating weather map in Liverpool's Albert Dock for ITV's top-rated This Morning show, was said by the prosecution to be "a chancer" who used his "boundless energy" and "extrovert personality" to gain the affection and trust of his victims.

The jury at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester cleared him of assaulting three boys but found him guilty of assaults on two boys.

Talbot, of Langham Road, Bowdon, was said to have been "obsessed" with teenage boys throughout his teaching career and "could not help himself" around them when under the influence of drink.

He was remanded in custody and to be sentenced on March 13.

Judge Timothy Mort said he did not require pre-sentencing reports but told Talbot his sentence should start today bearing in mind his "abuse of trust".

Talbot was passive as the foreman read out the verdicts.

He looked slightly surprised as he was told he was to be remanded in custody and nodded to the jurors before he left the dock .

Among the prosecution witnesses at the trial were The Stone Roses singer Ian Brown, who said Talbot gave masturbation practice as homework.

Brown said he remembered two or three biology lessons given by Talbot when he was an 11-year-old boy.

The witness said: "Very early at school, I would not have been there a long time, Mr Talbot asked all the class if any of us had ever masturbated.

"He went on to explain how to masturbate, how you should masturbate and the following lesson he asked who had masturbated."

Brown said Talbot also showed a gay porn film in another class.

Prosecutor Neil Usher put it to the defendant that he was "a weak man who regularly drank too much".

This led to him being tempted by boys in his care and regularly trying it on with them, he said.

Mr Usher said Talbot's modus operandi was to first establish his "good guy credentials" and then to break down the proper teacher-pupil boundaries, leaving his victims confused as made his advances.

Four of the complainants were teenage pupils at Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, where Talbot taught biology, while the other attended a high school in Gateshead when the defendant was at teacher training college.

The science teacher denied anything sexual or even inappropriate occurred between himself and the Altrincham pupils, while he said sexual activity with the Gateshead complainant only happened when the boy turned 16.

The court heard that Talbot's teaching career came to "an abrupt end" in May 1984 following an indecent proposal he made to two pupils at his home.

He offered his bed for the night to the 15-year-old boys and said to them: "Make sure you leave room for me in the middle".

Talbot kept quiet about why he resigned from Altrincham Grammar as his television career took off.

Talbot was convicted of two counts of indecent assault in relation to two complainants and cleared of eight counts of indecent assault in relation to three other complainants.

Following the verdicts, it can be reported that a number of similar complaints against Talbot about offences said to have been committed in Scotland have been passed by police to the Procurator Fiscal.

Both of Talbot's victims were assaulted on school canal barge trips in the Cheshire area in the mid 1970s.

The first victim, who thought he was 14 at the time, said Talbot abused him after he was told to share a bed with him.

It emerged that he had previously reported the weatherman to police on four separate occasions dating back to 1992 but no action had been taken.

He said he was "quite drunk" after Talbot brought some beers back from the pub and then was told to join in on a mock naked orgy involving up to 10 boys and Talbot, which was photographed.

He told the jury of nine women and three men that one boy would lay on top of another who pretended to be a girl.

Following the "orgy" he said Talbot told him to sleep with him in a makeshift double bed in a partitoned area as there were not enough bunk beds to go round.

Talbot then performed a sex act on him.

He said: "He said this is natural and this is how men touch other men, because I didn't know what was going on."

The following morning he said that Talbot told him to never speak about the incident or of the "orgy" which would be their "secret".

The second victim was abused on another barge trip in similar circumstances.

He said that boys would take turns to sleep in Talbot's bed during the trip and when it was his turn the defendant "started talking to me about sexual stuff".

Talbot then began to indecently assault him and the schoolboy told him to stop, the court was told.

The complainant - who thought he may have been aged 14 at the time - said the defendant persisted and he kept pulling Talbot's hand away.

He said: "I was a very naive child and I couldn't really understand it."

The complainant said when he was aged in his late 20s he wrote to ITV Granada to tell them Talbot had abused him.

He said: "I wrote an anonymous letter to Granada Reports but obviously they could not act on it.

"It was just to say that I had been sexually assaulted on an occasion by this man. I think I was a bit angry at the time."

Talbot was cleared over allegations he indecently assaulted a 15-year-old Gateshead schoolboy he met while at teacher training college.

The weatherman claimed consensual sexual activity between the pair only began after his 16th birthday.

Talbot was also acquitted over charges he indecently assaulted two 16-year-old Altrincham Grammar pupils at his home.

Read Talbot's diary entries here: