A serial child abuser has been told he will probably die in prison after being jailed for 20 years for attacks on four different boys.
Ex soldier Edward Owens, aged 69, raped two of the boys and remained undetected for more than 20 years because police did not act on their complaints.
The wheelchair bound 69-year-old was only prosecuted after he went on to molest a12-year-old boy who was lured to his home play computer games last year.
Retired bus driver Owens plied the vulnerable boy with wine but the child had the presence of mind to escape his assault and lock himself in a bathroom where he texted his mother to raise the alarm.
Owens' history of abuse then unraveled police discovered that serious complaints had been made about him in the 1980s and 1990s but not acted on because there was no corroboration.
The abuse has had long lasting effects on the two victims, who were both raped repeatedly. They suffer problems with controlling anger and one is suffering post traumatic stress disorder with flashbacks and depression.
The boys were both abused at a time when Owens had moved to Devon and lived at Tedburn St Mary, Barnstaple, and Exeter while working as a bus driver on routes all around the county, including the Teign Valley service to Christow.
He had succeeded in hiding his interest in boys for much of his life and had been married with two children of his own despite having been thrown out of the army for 'disgraceful conduct' with a young soldier in 1976.
The jury at Exeter Crown Court heard he used this as a cover for his grooming and sexual abuse of two different boys in the 1980s and 1990s.
He went on to abuse the 12-year-old and a 16-year-old after his marriage broke up and he was living alone in a flat in Exeter.
Owens was jailed for 20 years after being brought straight to court from the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital where he was being treated for breathing problems.
He appeared in court in a wheelchair and carrying an oxygen cylinder linked to breathing tubes in his nose. His own barrister said the length of his sentence meant he would probably die in jail.
Owens, of Charnley Avenue, Exeter, was found guilty of eleven serious sexual assaults which would now be called male rapes. These offences were against to different boys aged 12 to 16 in the 1980s and 1990s.
He was also convicted of sexual assaults on two boys, one aged 16 in 2010 and one aged 12 in 2013 and he admitted five indecent assaults on one of the earlier victims.
He was jailed for a total of 20 years by Judge Graham Cottle, who described Owens' claims that the boys had initiated sexual contact as 'monstrous'.
He told him:"The jury heard from two men who talked about the abuse they suffered many years ago as children. For both of them it was humiliating, degrading and embarrassing to have to relive and recount their experiences.
"They have been left with dreadful memories which have had impacts on them.
"Your case was that they initiated the sexual activity. That is a monstrous suggestion without a shred of truth.
"There was clearly an element of grooming and gifts in the form of cigarettes and some alcohol as well as ever present threats of dreadful consequences if they did not submit to what you required."
Miss Kelly Scrivener, defending, said:"The length of any sentence is such that in all likelihood he will pass his days out in prison and he is aware of that. He knows he is unlikely to be in the community again."
Mr Richard Crabb, prosecuting, said that in the light of Owens' ill health and lengthy sentence it was not necessary to apply for a Sexual Offences Prevention Order.
