Edward, not his real name, said he met Pickthall when he was three and the abuse began when he was a student aged around 12 or 13.

He used to go to Pickthall’s home for private piano lessons, where much abuse occurred.

“I really considered him a friend, he was someone I went out with quite often on Saturday nights.

“We were eating pizza and I remember drinking a lot of whiskey there and then he would take me home on Sunday and stay for Sunday lunch, that was the level of trust he had.”

Edward said: “You would go there and he would put pornography on the TV and then sit next to you and used to sense if you were aroused by watching him, which was always a bit uncomfortable .”

Edward said he saw Pickthall put his hands down the pants of some of the other boys and called it a “tickle spot.”

“He did it to me once and I hit him.”

“(It’s) very strange to look back on because it’s incredibly wrong. Until you look at it with adult eyes, you don’t necessarily see it.”

Edward said he had always been academic and had a successful career and started his own family.

He said Essex Police contacted him in 2021.

“One of the reasons I haven’t come forward, with all this type of grooming, is that he was kind of a friend. So it’s really weird to start telling stories about a friend.

“But then you look at it all with an adult’s mind and you realize he was anything but a friend.”