A former Devizes mayor who sexually abused a boy repeatedly during the 1970s was jailed for three years today.

Timothy Price, 57, of Waiblingen Way, Devizes, was found guilty of four counts of indecent assault and one of indecency with a child at Salisbury Crown Court on January 22.

Sentencing Price, Recorder Edward Burgess said: “It was only a matter of time before the dark secret of what you had done to [the victim] was broken.

He added: “It was a shame you did not have the decency to spare [the victim] the pain of a trial by pleading guilty.”

Price, who has terminal prostate cancer, has just 12 months to live so may now die in prison.

A GP’s report said going to prison would make it difficult for him to undergo successful treatment.

Recorder Burgess said his sentence was “very considerably shorter” than it would have been if Price had been in good health.

Prosecuting, Matthew Scott read from the victim’s impact statement, which said: “I have spent most of my life pretending to myself I was not subject to the most horrendous sexual abuse.

“I shut the disgusting memories of the things he made me do in a box inside my head.”

A separate charge of possessing indecent images was ordered to lie on file.

Representing Price, Stephen Dent said his client had been very young at the time and had been experimenting with his sexuality.

He added that Price never forced his victim to comply.

“It does have all the hallmarks of teenage sexual exploration, the problem being, of course, that one party was seven years older than the other,” he said.

Mr Dent said Price had done a “great deal of good public work” and had “enjoyed the respect of the community”.

“This is a tremendous fall from grace for him,” he added.

Price was 16 and the boy, from Durrington, was nine when the five years of abuse started.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, broke a 34-year silence when he confronted Price by email in August 2013.

Price responded an hour later, admitting and appologising for his crimes, but later denied them in court.

The judge said Price mentally tortured and bullied his victim to comply with his selfish sexual demands.