A paedophile former cricket coach has been sentenced to a further two years in prison for a fifth offence of indecently assaulting teenage boys.
Michael Strange, 63, admitted last month to attacking a 15-year-old boy while working as a coach for Durham county cricket club in the late 1990s.
He has now been convicted of sexual attacks on five teenage boys, each with multiple charges of indecent assault, which he carried out at two clubs in the north-east of England between 1990 and 2004.
The two-year sentence has been added to his term, which was due to come to an end this year.
Newcastle crown court heard how, in January 2022, after seeing news reports about previous cases, the fifth victim came forward to say Strange had told him he was a cricket scout and could help him make the step from children’s cricket to the senior game.
Strange befriended the boy and his parents, said Neil Pallister, prosecuting, and would often give him lifts to training in his car.
On the night of the assault, the boy was at Strange’s home waiting for his parents to pick him up when the paedophile put pornography on the TV and carried out an attack that lasted between 20 and 30 minutes.
“The defendant was talking graphically about pornography and what he wanted to do to the complainant as he was touching him,” Pallister said.
In a victim’s personal statement read to the court, the man said: “For over 20 years the actions and behaviour of Michael Strange has been an embarrassing secret. I felt disgust, shame and guilt but never had the courage to speak to anyone until now.”
He said he was “disappointed” by the cricket authorities for not identifying the offending earlier and that they had failed to protect “me and countless other vulnerable children”.
“I hope safeguarding measures are constantly reviewed to prevent similar incidents in future.”
A spokesperson for the England and Wales Cricket Board said: “The thoughts of everyone at the ECB and within the game are with all the victims of Michael Strange and we applaud and commend their bravery in coming forwards. Everyone should be safe playing cricket.
“Michael Strange has not been involved in cricket since he was suspended from all cricket activity in May 2005, so the full scope of his crimes are only clear to us now. We are distraught that he was able to commit these crimes.
“The landscape of safeguarding has changed enormously in 18 years but we have worked with statutory partners on this case and we have commenced an internally led review to establish further information about the environment in which Strange committed his offences within cricket to inform best practice and to further develop the ECB’s safeguarding strategy.”
