A CONVICTED paedophile who preyed on Hampshire youngsters at a beauty spot is starting a life sentence today.

Neil Scorer was put on probation in July 1998 by an Old Bailey judge but only a year later the predatory child abuser was molesting children in a Gosport wood.

After the 50-year-old was sentenced yesterday, the mother of one of his victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she was delighted but added that nothing could make up for her son's trauma.

"It marks the end of Scorer on the streets but my son has got to live with this for the rest of his life.

"He should not have been out on the streets. If he had been sentenced properly in the first place it would never have happened to these boys."

Scorer has 25 previous convictions for sexual offences involving young boys, being jailed twice in the 1980s and again in 1997.

But in 1998 Judge Neil Denison gave him three years' probation for sexual offences linked to the St John Ambulance organisation in the 1970s.

The following year Scorer was living in Brading Avenue, Gosport. He lured boys to a wood, offered them cigarettes and paid them to pose for indecent photographs.

His prosecution came after a year-long investigation by the police paedophile unit at Netley, with officers sifting through depraved computer images, carrying out observation and inquiries, tracking Scorer's Internet use and interviewing victims.

Scorer pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape, with alternative charges of a serious sexual offence, one count of indecent assault and one count of indecency with a child.

But the jury at his October trial found him guilty of one count of rape, one count of committing a serious sexual offence against a boy, indecent assault and indecency with a child.

Scorer also pleaded guilty to three counts of taking indecent photographs of children and 15 counts of making indecent images of children, a sample taken from the 10,000 pornographic images on his computer.

Sentencing him to an indeterminate life sentence, Judge David Selwood said Scorer was an admitted paedophile who had received counselling and treatment in the past that merely furthered his knowledge of the right things to say.

"My assessment on all the facts known to me is that there is a high risk of your offending again in the same way in the future and that you are a continuing threat to young boys."

Pc Mick Brown said: "We are pleased for the families and the victims. We are pleased for the children of Gosport."

Police have asked the Daily Echo to point out that Scorer's house is now a family home completely unlinked to him and should not be targeted by anti-paedophile protesters.