A wheelchair user is facing jail after being found guilty of abusing four different boys over more than 30 years.
Edward Owens was in hospital being treated for breathing difficulties when a jury at Exeter Crown Court returned unanimous verdicts on all the charges he faced.
The former bus driver had admitted molesting two of the boys but insisted both had seduced him when they were aged only 11 and he was in his 30s.
Owens is a former bus driver who has lived in Exeter, Tedburn St Mary and Barnstaple and has driven hundreds of thousands of passengers, including schoolchildren, on routes all around Devon.
He committed his most serious offences after moving to Devon from Essex in the 1980s and starting to work for the Red Bus company on routes in the Teign Valley, serving Bridford and Christow.
Owens was a former soldier who was dismissed from the army in disgrace in 1976 for committing acts of gross indecency with another soldier.
He hid his interest in boys and young men for decades during which he posed as a happily married family man.
During a week-long trial Exeter Crown Court heard how his catalogue of abuse remained hidden until he molested a 12-year-old boy last year.
The child had been staying with neighbours and went to his house to play computer games. He plied the boy with wine, sat him on his knee and then began undoing his trousers.
The terrified victim told him he was going to be sick, locked himself in the bathroom, and texted his mother to ask for help.
She did not get the message until the next day but the Owens did not assault the boy again and was arrested after the victim told his mother, who called the police.
Inquiries into Owens' background then uncovered the much more serious abuse he carried out in completely separate series of assaults in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
In each case he started grooming the boys through lesser acts and progressed to offences which would now be described as male rape.
The fourth victim was a 15-year-old who Owens assaulted at his flat four years ago. He got drunk and awoke to find Owens touching him.
Owens, aged 69, of Charnley Road, Exeter, claimed the boys initiated the sexual behaviour but it took a jury just an hour to find him guilty on all counts.
He was found guilty of sexual assaults on the 12 and 15-year-old in 2010 and 2013 and a total of 11 counts of a serious sexual offence (buggery) on the other two boys in the 1980s and 1990s when they were aged 11 to 16.
He admitted five counts of indecent assault.
Judge Graham Cottle adjourned sentence after being told Owens in still in hospital but could be released soon.
He said:"Ordinarily I would proceed to sentence immediately but the circumstances of this case are anything but normal as he is still in hospital.
"It is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs with no official statement from the hospital about when he will be discharged. It seems extraordinary we cannot get chapter and verse on his situation.
"The hospital knew he was admitted in the middle of a Crown Court trial and facing exceptionally serious allegations but they have not moved to help us."
Owens sat in a wheelchair at the back of the court with tubes up his nose and an oxygen tank to help his breathing. He also took puffs of oxygen while giving evidence.
Despite suffering from shortness of breath, he is a chain smoker who was seen on the steps of the court during breaks in his case with a cigarette in one hand and an oxygen mask in the other.
He denied the serious allegations against him and said the final two incidents in 2010 and 2013 had not happened.
