A football coach allegedly drugged boys from his team before sexually assaulting them during overnight trips to his beach hut.
Anthony Mitchell took boys for weekend sleepovers in a converted ambulance and gave them Mogadon sleeping pills in their late night drinks.
He zipped together two sleeping bags and slept with boys either side of him on a makeshift bed in the back of the van, which he also used as the team bus for the football team which he ran in Exeter in the 1970s.
Mitchell, aged 78, was prosecuted at the time over his assaults on boys but is now on trial at Exeter Crown Court for offences against two other victims which pre-dated the cases he admitted in 1980.
One of the boys, now in his 50s, went to the police after finding out Mitchell was running a youth team in Exeter once again.
The other made his disclosures after the Jimmy Savile scandal prompted him to confront the abuse in his own childhood.
Mitchell, of Foxhayes Road, Exeter, denies two serious sexual offences which would now be classed as male rape, one of assault with intent to commit a similar offence, and three indecent assaults.
All the allegations date back to the late 1970s and involve boys who were aged 11 to 13 at the time.
The jury have been told of his 1980 convictions for four offences of administering a drug with the intention of committing an offence and three indecent assaults.
Mr Stephen Dent, prosecuting, told the jury that Mitchell ran youth football teams in Exeter from 1954, when he was just 18 until he was prosecuted for the first time in 1980.
He bought an old ambulance and converted it to be the team bus but also used it to take two or more boys at a time on trips for weekends, where they spent the days in his beach hut and nights in the van.
He said he used to give boys sleeping pills at night and later admitted using Mogadon tablets which were prescribed to him by his GP because he was a night worker at a warehouse and had problems sleeping during the day.
Mr Dent said the new offences involved assaults on the two boys.
One boy recalls waking up in a stupefied state after being given a tablet and finding himself naked in the ambulance with Mitchell.
The other alleges he was sexually assaulted while sharing a sleeping bag with Mitchell and another boy.
Mr Dent said the first boy had received years of therapy to help him come to terms with his ordeal and had tried to go to the police before but been unable to face making a formal complaint.
He said:"It was not until May last year that his position changed. In that month he attended a youth football game in Exeter and who should he see running one of the teams in the tournament but Mitchell.
"You can imagine his shock that he was involved again with children's football. He spoke to a friend who is a police officer and this time he had the strength to give a full statement.
"The other complainant had chosen not to go the police because he did not want to dredge up memories. He did, however, wonder over the years what happened to Mitchell and would on occasions Google his name to see if he was still alive.
"Each time he found nothing but the last the last time he searched was after seeing a news item about Rolf Harris. At the time the other allegations were in their early stage in the court process and there was a report on the internet.
"At that point he realised he was going to have to come forward."
Mr Dent read the jury a set of police interviews with Mitchell from the 1980 case in which he admitted giving boys as young as nine two Mogadon tablets, twice the recommended adult dose.
He admitted touching two boys and said he may have touched two others in his sleep but insisted he did not drug them with the intention of assaulting them.
He said he was a night shift warehouseman with Surridge and Dawson and gave the boys pills to make sure they slept late in the mornings so he could enjoy a good night's sleep of his own.
When interviewed about the new allegations he said he could remember both boys but denied carrying out any sexual assaults on them.
The trial continues.
