Prescott, a former assistant director of social services, magistrate and Labour councillor has been jailed for abusing boys in a scandal which may have seen as many as 70 victims over a 30 year period while a employed as a superintendent of a Tower Hamlets care home.

After being in charge of the home, he became assistant director of social services at the borough, before moving on to become chief executive of Toynbee Hall, a charitable organisation, until his arrest in August 2000.

The court heard that the former Havering councillor, who fondled boys aged 15 to 19 as they lay in bed, confessed after the separate trial of William Starling, a colleague and "House Parent" at St Leonard's, the home in Hornchurch, over which Prescott presided from 1968 until it closed in 1984.

In April 2001, Starling was jailed for 14 years for 19 offences including two rapes, buggery and indecent assault, on 10 girls and one boy as young as five over a 20 year period at St Leonard's and The Greensteads, a home in Basildon, Essex.

Prescott received a two years custodial sentence.

The men's sentences - handed down in April 2001 and, for Prescott, October 2001 - was reported only after the judge halted proceedings against Haydn Davies, 62, from Plymouth, a third alleged paedophile who was facing offences of assault involving boys at St Leonard's in the 1970s and 1980s.

Speaking after the hearing, Detective Inspector Daniel O'Malley, said Operation Mapperton had unveiled a "harrowing" tale of systematic child abuse at the homes, and that the investigation would continue. With 3,000 children having passed through the homes while Prescott, Starling and Davies were working there, he believed as many as 70 may have been abused.

Hull City councillor Steven Bayes, 47 at the time of his trial, was found with his boyfriend Dale Martin, who was 17 when he was arrested. At the time, the legal age of consent for gay sex in Northern Ireland was 18. This has now been lowered to 16, in line with the rest of the UK.

The disgraced former city councillor and NHS nurse, who had also served as Humberside Police Authority chairman, was convicted by a jury of two offences of making indecent photographs of children, and one of having 'extreme images', after a Hull Crown Court Trial.

Bayes, who called himself 'Lord of Darkness' on Twitter - had denied any wrong doing and tried to lay the blame for the material found on his computers on a 'vulnerable' young adult, Recorder Richard Woolfall told him when sentencing him on Friday.

His barrister, Richard Thompson, conceded the offences crossed the custody threshold, but asked on Bayes's behalf for the sentence to be suspended.

There were still things to be said in his favour - he had no previous convictions, had devoted much of his life to public service, and was able to provide positive character references from friends and colleagues who continued to stand by him. But his chances of walking free from court evaporated when it emerged Bayes was still refusing to accept his guilt in his pre-sentence interview with the probation service.

The judge called that "particularly worrying", and contrasted it with defendants in similar positions, who were "contrite" and "cooperative".

After he was jailed, Bayes's former political boss in the city and a leading children's charity both had the harshest of words for him.

City Council Leader Stephen Brady said in a statement "As a parent, grandparent and someone whose political life has been focused on supporting the people of our city, I am appalled at these offences which fuel the abuse and victimisation of young people. I condemn Steven Bayes for the actions which resulted in his conviction and sentencing today."

An NSPCC spokeswoman said "Bayes had been elected into a position of power and trust by the public and today’s sentence reflects his betrayal of that faith shown in him. By downloading this material he has fuelled a vile trade in indecent images. Each portrays a crime scene and every time an image is shared online the knowledge that it could be repeatedly viewed, and in some cases may never be removed, causes on-going trauma that a survivor of child abuse has to live with."

The indecent images included photographs and movies of child abuse at category A (the absolute worst kind) and of boys as young as seven performing sex acts with adults and each other. The extreme images also featured men having sex with horses and dogs.

Claire Holmes, Prosecuting, said one of the videos showed a child in "discernable pain or distress", who was "crying in pain" and said "no" as he began being seriously sexually abused by a man. The judge told Bayes he "found pleasure in the sexual abuse of children".

The day began badly for Bayes, with police having to intervene when two men describing themselves as his "friends" clashed with TV crews outside court.

Bayes, of Prospect Street, city centre, was made subject to a sexual harm prevention order for ten years and must register as a sex offender for the same period.

Detective Inspector Kevin Foster said after the hearing "We take these offences extremely seriously and we hope that this sentence today, particularly given to an individual in Bayes' position of authority and trust, will send a firm and robust message that we will investigate such crimes thoroughly. Offenders who commit these types or crime will not go unpunished."