FORMER Devizes mayor Tim Price will be sentenced for historic sex offences on March 23.

Price, 57, of Waiblingen Way, Devizes, was found guilty of repeatedly sexually abusing a boy between 1974, when the boy was nine, and 1979.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges but was found guilty by a jury at Salisbury Crown Court on January 21.

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

Prosecuting, Andrew Houston told court that Price first made the boy touch him, then moved on to touching him and coercing him to engage in a sex act.

He said the boy had tried to tell family members but the shame had made him clam up. He had not even told his wife, the court heard.

Price, who was mayor in 2000, is suffering from terminal prostate cancer.