A former scoutmaster was jailed for six years for a string of sexual offences on boys at a care home which he treated as a "paedophile's paradise".

William Rogers, 51, of Corporation Road, Weymouth, was convicted of 16 counts of indecent assault, one count of inciting boys to indecently assault other boys, and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm by a jury at Bristol Crown Court.

Rogers, known as Big Bill, who worked at the Olands Observation and Assessment centre at Milverton, near Taunton, Somerset, carried out the series of assaults as part of "sadistic" games of torture with boys as young as nine.

Judge Francis Gilbert QC said: "You abused that trust very gravely indeed, you saw them as playthings for your sexual and physical pleasures.

"The truth is you treated Olands as a paedophile's paradise, where you submitted the children in your care to sexual abuse, to pain, to bondage, and even to torture for your own perverted pleasure."

He sentenced Rogers to a total of six years in prison for the 18 charges of which he was convicted, and 13 other similar offences to which he pleaded guilty, all of which took place between 1980 and 1987.

The trial came after a two-year investigation into child abuse across Avon and Somerset.

The judge, who said he had been horrified and distressed at some of the evidence, told Rogers he had shown himself to be unrepentant of the damage he had inflicted on boys who were "very vulnerable".

He said the former care home worker had done himself no credit by accusing his victims of making up their allegations to claim compensation.

Rogers, who showed no emotion at any of the verdicts or during the sentencing, was acquitted of two offences of indecent assault, and the judge directed the jury to return verdicts of not guilty on four other similar charges.