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Questions have been raised about why child abuser Gordon Anglesea was allowed to leave Mold Crown Court through a back exit in secret.

The former police superintendent faces jail after he was convicted of historical child sex abuse today.

Anglesea , 79, of Old Colwyn, was convicted of indecently assaulting a boy at a house in Mold in the 1980s.

He was cleared of carrying out a more serious sexual assault against another boy but convicted of an alternative charge of indecent assault.

He was also found guilty of carrying out two indecent assaults on the boy between 1982 and 1987, when he was an inspector running a Home Office attendance centre at St Joseph’s School in Wrexham.

Anglesea was granted bail until his sentencing on November 4 – but left the court by a back exit rather than through the front doors as is usually the case.

Asked why Anglesea was given special treatment, Mold Crown Court did not respond.

However, a source at the Ministry of Justice said the decision would have been taken by the court as well as the police.

“This decision will have been taken at a local level by those at the court including police and security," said the source.

“There is a duty of care to people in the court to ensure their safety.”

Releasing Anglesea on bail, Judge Geraint Walters warned him he was facing a custodial sentence.

“You know yourself already that there can only be one sentence and that will be a prison sentence,” said the judge.

Anglesea frowned in the dock as the forewoman of the 11-strong jury returned the verdicts.

The boys abused by Anglesea, who the prosecution alleged had links to convicted paedophiles, were aged 14 or 15 at the time and are now in their 40s.

The six-week trial heard one of the boys was taken to a house in Mold and was made to perform a sex act on Anglesea who then threatened him, called him scum and told him he would “never see his family again” if he told anyone about it.

Anglesea abused another boy at the attendance centre when he was showering alone.

The retired police chief, of Gwynant, Old Colwyn, denied all charges and said the allegations were lies and inventions on the part of the prosecution witnesses.

He claimed the allegations were part of a conspiracy against him after he was named in the press as a child abuser in the early 1990s.

Tina Griffiths QC, defending, claimed that the allegations were rubbish and should never have been brought to court.

Eleanor Laws QC, prosecuting, said the defendant felt he had the power to do it and took advantage of young boys by sexually abusing them.