A former football coach who inflicted a 19-year reign of sexual terror over boys, including the rape of a young player, was jailed on Thursday for nine years.

Russell Conn, who managed teams for more than 26 years in Ayrshire, targeted teenagers when they were alone. The 59-year-old “groomed and abused” three boys between 1995 and 2014, leaving them “deeply damaged”.

Conn, who also worked as a delivery driver and a painter and decorator, abused two of the boys in his work vans.

The court heard he earned their trust and had sexual conversations with them before the attacks.

Conn denied he had done anything wrong. But a jury unanimously convicted him at the High Court in Glasgow of one charge of rape and four of sexual assault.

Conn, of Stevenston, Ayrshire, was put on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.

Ex-football coach in Scotland who raped young player jailed for nine years