A FORMER Children's Panel chairman who abused two boys he met through the hearing system has been jailed for 12 years.
Daniel Ross attacked one victim just moments before a meeting to decide the youngster's future in the early 1990s.
Ross had by that time already preyed on another vulnerable teenager while based at the panel's Glasgow headquarters.
The 62 year-old returned to the High Court in Glasgow yesterday after earlier being convicted of six sex charges.
This also included attacks on a young man Ross had originally met at a gay club in the 1970s.
Lord Matthews told Ross - who continues to deny the allegations - that he was guilty of "very grave offences".
The judge said Ross' involvement with the Children's Panel could have been viewed as a "mitigatory factory" - but here it had the opposite effect.
He added: "It was your position which gave you access to the young vulnerable boys and who were entitled to look to you to make important decisions for their welfare.
"Decisions which should have enabled them to make the most of the poor start they had been given in life.
"Instead you grossly abused your position of trust and made decisions for your own benefit."
Ross, latterly of Oldham, Greater Manchester, showed no emotion as he was lead handcuffed to the cells.
Ross pounced on a teenage boy at the Children's Panel offices in the city's Albion Street in the 1990s.
The witness recalled how he had been in care since the age of 11 and was later expelled from school in second year.
The victim - now aged 38 - remembered Ross being in charge of meetings to discuss his future at the time.
He said: "At the start, I thought Mr Ross was quite a nice person. He came across that way."
But he said that changed shortly before a hearing when he was around 14.
He recalled: "The first time, when I think back, it was like a grooming session. I was in a room and he put his hand on my lap.
"This was in the room just off where the panel was to be."
As Ross continued to molest the youngster, he told him that "because of his position" he would "deny" what happened.
The witness remembered being "terrified" at the time - but that Ross went on to chair the teenager's meeting.
But, the abuse carried on - again before a hearing at Albion Street.
The victim wept as he remembered a time Ross forcing himself upon him.
He told the trial: "I was frightened of Mr Ross as he knew what home or wherever I was in. I was upset."
Ross - who was also a special police constable - had earlier abused another young boy between 1985 and 1988.
He also met this victim through the Children's Panel. Ross got him a job at a cafe he ran - giving him access to prey on the troubled youngster.
The victim said he was around 13 when the attacks began and that it became a "regular thing".
The abuse occurred at the cafe in Glasgow's Mount Florida and at a flat in the city's Kinning Park.
The witness - now aged 42 - told the court: "I felt as if I had no choice. It was just through fear and threats...the fear of being put into a kids home.
"I was told that I was going to a home because I was having to go to the Children's Panel.
"It was always under that threat...he said that he could stop that happening."
Ross' first victim was sexually assaulted after they met at a gay club in the late 1970s.
They later lived together at a flat in Glasgow's Ibrox, but the witness said: "I was very much like a slave.
"I did not have a life - compared to what I have achieved now, I had no life."
Ross - no longer involved with the Children's Panel - was finally brought to justice after an initial police probe in 2001 did not bring any charges.
However, in 2012, the victim Ross abused at the cafe again spoke with detectives.
He told the jury: "The Jimmy Savile thing started up and brought everything flooding back."
Ross was charged at that time along with 55 year-old Donald Finlayson, who later died before standing trial
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