A FORMER martial arts instructor who was jailed on Thursday for sexually abusing a young boy had already been given 12 years’ worth of jail time for similar offending.

Colin Stratton, now 62, was handed a 21 month sentence after he admitted nine counts of indecent assault and gross indecency between the years 1984 and 1992 on two boys.

One of the boys had been touched over his clothing by Stratton as he was taken to karate classes in Shrivenham. The boy, now a grown man, said he had been warned not to tell his mother what had happened.

The offences bear similarities with crimes the former karate tutor has been jailed for in the past.

In 1997, he was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment after a jury convicted him of raping a boy under 16, attempted rape and indecent assault.

He was subsequently convicted of possessing indecent images of children.

Then seven years ago, in 2014, a Swindon judge put him away for eight years.

On that occasion, the court heard how the victim first met Stratton when he went to his classes as a boy in late 1989.

The older man carried out a campaign of abuse over the following six-and-a-half years. He would use the classes as an opportunity to assault the boy and assert himself on him.

Stratton’s victim said seeing NSPCC adverts on TV brought it all back and led to him self-harming again. Prosecutor Claire Marlow told Swindon Crown Court in 2014: “He came forward as he doesn’t want to live in fear anymore.”

When he was questioned by police, Stratton denied the allegations, saying the boy was just repeating what had been said at an earlier trial.

Jailing him for eight years and imposing an extended licence period, Judge Peter Blair QC accused Stratton of “twisted thinking”.

“The victim impact statement that he made and has been read out is one which tugs at the heart strings,” the judge said.

“I suspect you will never know just how much harm you have caused.”