An Ipswich man has been convicted of sexually assaulting two teenage boys.

Scott Doughty had denied seven offences against the boys, now 18 and 19, claiming he was the victim of a “homophobic vendetta”.

But the 47-year-old was found guilty of twice assaulting one of the boys aged 15 and 16, and assaulting the other boy on three occasions when 16 and 17.

Doughty took the stand to describe himself as a flamboyant, openly gay man during his trial at Suffolk Magistrates’ Court.

“I accept my comments are sometimes risqué. I was brought up in a different generation,” said Doughty, when questioned by defence barrister Juliet Donovan.

“I’m a very tactile person. I find it very difficult not to touch people in a loving compassionate way – but never in a sexual way.”

Doughty, of Parliament Road, accepted tapping one boy on the bottom but said it was not sexual. He also denied nipping or pinching his bottom and testicle area, making him bend over and touching his bottom, or brushing his penis with a hand.

He accepted ‘horse-nipping’ the older boy’s thigh but denied it was sexual. He also accepted lifting him up on one occasion but denied groping his genitals, or “flicking” his penis at another time.

The court saw footage of him kissing the boy’s cheek before holding him aloft by the torso and groin, but he claimed the incident was not sexual and suggested the boy had fabricated the claims.

Doughty, a manager at Gresham’s Sports and Social Club at the time of his trial, claimed both boys made up the assaults as part of a “homophobic vendetta”.

But prosecutor Matthew Mr Sorel-Cameron told him: “You found both sexually attractive; you never asked for their consent and they never gave you permission; you took their silence as permission and they never reciprocated this behaviour.”

District judge Nick Watson, called both boys “honest and credible” before convicting Doughty of slapping and touching one of their bottoms, and pinching it while he sat on a stool, but clearing him of intentionally touching his penis after making a sexual remark, and touching his bottom after making him bend over. He also convicted him of assaulting the other boy by horse-nipping his thigh and groin, flicking and touching his penis, and squeezing his groin while lifting him aloft.

Doughty will be sentenced at the same court on October 11.