TV weatherman Fred Talbot has been found guilty of indecently assaulting two schoolboys when he was a teacher.

Talbot, 65, a regular on the floating weather map in Liverpool's Albert Dock for ITV's top-rating This Morning show, was said by the prosecution to be "a chancer" who used his "boundless energy" and "extrovert personality" to gain the affection and trust of his victims.

The jury at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court cleared him of assaulting three boys but found him guilty of assaults on two boys.

Talbot was said to have been "obsessed" with teenage boys throughout his teaching career and "could not help himself" around them when under the influence of drink.

Talbot was remanded in custody and to be sentenced on March 13.

Judge Timothy Mort said he did not require pre-sentencing reports but told Talbot his sentence should start today bearing in mind his "abuse of trust".

Talbot was passive as the foreman read out the verdicts. He looked slightly surprised as he was told he was to be remanded in custody and nodded to the jurors before he left the dock.

Among the prosecution witnesses at the trial were The Stone Roses singer Ian Brown who said Talbot gave masturbation practice as homework.

Brown said he remembered two or three biology lessons given by Talbot when he was an 11-year-old boy.

The witness said: "Very early at school, I would not have been there a long time, Mr Talbot asked all the class if any of us had ever masturbated.

"He went on to explain how to masturbate, how you should masturbate and the following lesson he asked who had masturbated."

Brown said Talbot also showed a gay porn film in another class.

'Worst ten seconds of Talbot's life'

Fred Talbot covered up "the worst 10 seconds" of his life so he could land his first break in television.

In 1984 he resigned in disgrace from his teaching post at Altrincham Grammar School after he admitted making an indecent proposal to two 15-year-old pupils.

He had thrown away the job he was said to have loved and had gone into "to change the world" by "improving" young people.

After letting the boys sleep over at his house following a stargazing session, he came into the bedroom and said: "Make sure you leave room for me in the middle."

One of the boys also alleged that Talbot - who said the comment was "a joke" - had asked to perform a sexual act on him, which the defendant denied.

But the reason for his swift departure was not even widely known at the school.

Talbot told his trial: "It was the sort of thing that was very discreet. Old school."

The offer of television work came in with a short spell on ITV's Saturday morning children's show No. 73.

In 1985 he was offered the job as a weatherman for ITV Granada in the North West, which would later lead to fame as a regular on the floating weather map in Liverpool's Albert Dock for ITV's top-rated This Morning show.

An April 1985 entry from his voluminous diaries showed his thoughts at the time.

He wrote: "It will soon be a year since I left the school. I have survived but it has not been easy.

"I feel confident about the weather job. I have made too many mistakes in my life but I need a break and the weather job will give me a chance."

His past first caught up with him in 1992 when he received a knock on the door from two police officers after one of the complainants in the current investigation first reported he had been sexually abused by Talbot.

Talbot was asked directly why he had left the school and if any similar complaint had been made against him.

He told them he left because of a TV opportunity and had never faced an allegation of this nature.

Talbot admitted in his trial that it was "not in my interests" to tell the truth.

His barrister, Suzanne Goddard QC, told the jury: "He did not want the police to know why he resigned because the whole of his burgeoning TV career was on the line. Any link with him being involved in a scandal would have brought the whole lot crashing down on him."

The investigation went no further and Talbot continued his TV career but in December 1995 his past indiscretion returned to haunt him again.

Talbot told the jury that a News Of The World reporter came to his home and confronted him with the details of his resignation from the school.

The newspaper had also contacted the school on the subject.

In a diary entry from the time, the weatherman wrote: "I had a dreadful night. I always feared this would happen."

Talbot told the court: "They knew everything, they had every fact."

He said no article was published on that subject but instead the Sunday tabloid reported that he had come out as gay.

Talbot said: "But I had not. I had to tell my ageing mother, who was very shocked. She was in her 80s."

The defendant lied again when quizzed by police in April 2013 about the current allegations.

Having seized his diaries, kept since he was aged 12, they noticed a number of entries had asterisks next to them.

He told them they denoted each time he had a panic attack.

But he later confessed to his legal team that the starred entries actually referred to every time he had a sexual encounter.

Talbot told the jury he did not tell the truth to the police about the diary entries because he was "embarrassed" and did not want to "lay bare" his sexual history.

But prosecutor Neil Usher said he only did so because of the "overwhelming evidence" against him and also put it to him he would also use "euphemisms" in his diary as sexual code - such as "much happened", "an interesting talk" and "an interesting chat".

Talbot denied he had hidden or destroyed some diaries which are still missing, among them from 1972 to 1975, and 1978 and 1979.