A "PREDATORY" paedophile set up fishing clubs and visited model car events to meet boys aged between nine and 12 whom he would then abuse, York Crown Court heard today.

Leslie Rix, 40, was this afternoon being sentenced for 20 sexual and drug offences on young boys in the York area.

In a series of bedsits he gave them alcohol and cannabis to lower their inhibitions so he could carry out sexual acts with them, said Julian Goose, prosecuting.

He added that at times Rix persuaded the boys to change from trousers into shorts and remove their tops on the pretext that their clothing would not smell of cigarette smoke.

But Rix's plan was to gain sexual gratification from looking at and touching their bodies.

Rix, formerly of Whitehall Lodge, Wigginton Road, York, pleaded guilty to 20 offences, including three of supplying cannabis to boys, six of indecent assault and 11 of indecency with children.

The offences occurred between March 1995 and April 2001. He has been in prison since he was charged.

Seven more charges relating to sexual abuse were left on the file after he denied them.

Mr Goose told the court that Rix had admitted offences against 13 boys, including two he asked to be taken into consideration.

He said Rix had a "predatory nature with regard to young boys". When aged 20 he was fined for indecent assault on a male and gross indecency, and in October 1998 was jailed for 12 months for soliciting. On that occasion he tried to bribe two boys to go to his home for a sexual act.

Mr Goose said he lived in a series of bedsits in the Holgate Road and Wilton Rise area, and set up fishing clubs and encouraged boys who had an interest in driving cars.

Rix took boys by car to various stretches of water for fishing and had with him alcoholic drinks and cigarettes. He also took them to airfields.

Last spring he approached two boys at a caravan club in north York, making sexual suggestions to them and urging them to go to his flat.

The boys, aged nine and ten told their parents, who alerted police.

Detectives broke into Rix's flat and found diaries and other publications giving the name of other boys and sexual notes written on them. They included accounts of his sexual activities.

A large team of officers spent months tracing the boys and finding out the true extent of his crimes. Rix's barrister Simon Phillips said that he was a risk at the moment, but with counselling that risk may reduce. He was giving his full mitigation later this afternoon.

Updated: 14:34 Wednesday, January 23, 2002