A “MONSTER” who abused children while he was a football coach has been jailed for 12 years after he raped a young boy before discussing the idea of killing him.

Reginald Goodman, 73, abused his position to get close to young boys, before launching a horrifying attack at a camp.

At the time of offending, in the 1970s, Goodman was aged in his 20s and purporting to run a Southend football team.

Two boys had joined the team when they were invited to a camp on farmland in Great Wakering.

Goodman was jailed for sexual offences in the 70s and 80s and was released from prison in 1991.

Lori Tucker, prosecuting, said: “It was clear upon arrival, the only adult present was the defendant.”

The boys stayed in tents and one night Goodman joined two and sexually abused them.

Ms Tucker said: “It is fair to say their recollections are somewhat clouded by the events which followed, the trauma which they suffered and no doubt the passage of time.”

The morning after, the tent had been padlocked and one boy was only allowed to leave after committing a sex act on Goodman.

A short time after the attack in the tent, one of the boys recalls being outside a betting shop with the predator.

Goodman told him to wait outside and said “if he moved, he would kill him”.

Such was his fear, he made no call for help despite the presence of a telephone box. Goodman then took the boy to a house, where he subjected him to further abuse.

Ms Tucker said: “In his words he remembers feeling ‘like a rag doll’. He felt like he had given up and just wanted to wait for whatever was happening to be over.”

Some time later the boy was moved to the kitchen, where he overheard Goodman discussing a plan to kill him.

On another occasion, a third victim had been asked by a friend to join Goodman’s football team.

Shortly after he joined, he went on a trip to the beach with Goodman.

Goodman said he would buy the boy and ice-cream if he showed him his penis. The boy fled and ran home to his mother.

Goodman, of Leaventhorpe Lane, Bradford, admitted two counts of buggery, two counts of indecent assault and one count of indecency with a child.

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Judge Samantha Leigh stopped Goodman’s barrister short in her mitigation when she referred to her client as “a man”.

Judge Leigh said: “I’m not sure I would use those words. Not a man, a monster.”

Isobel Ascherson, mitigating, said Goodman’s offending stopped after his release from prison in 1991.

She said: “He is ashamed of his past and fearful of what will happen to him.”

In a victim impact statement, one of the victims said he had lived 48 years through “emotional torments which have plagued his life”.

“I have consistently felt shame, felt guilt and worthlessness,” he said.

He added: “The biggest thing Reginald Goodman did that day was to end the authentic life of a boy.

“He robbed me of my confidence, aspirations and love. He caused the loss of the boy I should have been and the man I could have been.”

Addressing Goodman, Judge Leigh said: “It is clear and obvious to anyone that if you do what you did to children, you take from them their innocence. You take their childhood.

“You plague them with memories full of horror, hate and confusion from which they will never recover.”

Goodman was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment, with one year extended licence period.