A former teacher and scout leader who sexually abused Havering boys is a prolific paedophile with numerous previous child sex convictions, the Romford Recorder can reveal.
Michael Costin, 59, of HMP Pentonville, has been convicted of sexually abusing 12 children at scout groups in Rush Green and then Kirton.
But he already had convictions for molesting teens in Suffolk, Oxfordshire and Tower Hamlets.
The Romford Recorder was legally prevented from reporting details of these convictions until after the verdicts in his latest trial, to avoid influencing the jury.
But now we can reveal the full criminal history of the predatory former geography teacher, described in 2011 by a Thames Valley detective as “a devious and manipulative individual who gets himself in a position of trust before abusing his victims”.
Suffolk
Costin grew up in Romford and joined the scout movement, but was first prosecuted for child sex offences in 1996 at Ipswich Crown Court, having relocated to the village of Kirton to work as a geography teacher.
There, he had remained involved with the scouts.
He was convicted of plying three sea scouts with alcohol and molesting them.
The court sentenced Costin to two years in prison and ordered him to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for a decade.
One of the complainants in the latest trial, which concluded on Friday (February 9) at Snaresbrook Crown Court, was first spoken to by the police during this 1996 investigation.
At that time, he admitted seeing Costin abuse other children but could not bring himself to reveal his own abuse.
Prosecutor Walton Hornsby told jurors this was due to “a sense of shame and embarrassment”.
That boy, and 11 others, came forward between 2017 and 2022, following a series of high-profile historic investigations into Jimmy Savile and other paedophiles.
Missed opportunities
A 1996 investigation by our Ipswich Evening Star newspaper revealed there had been two complaints about Costin in the preceding years at a school where he was working.
However, neither resulted in any action.
In 1993, parents complained to the school after children said Costin had spoken to them about sex during geography lessons.
When Costin denied the claims, the matter went no further.
Costin accused one of the children of theft, meaning they were arrested while he faced no action.
After his arrest for theft, the boy alleged Costin had sexually abused him – but still nothing happened.
Then, in 1994, some parents complained to the school that Costin had given their son drugs.
Again, no action was taken – and when they approached police instead, the investigation was dropped due to a lack of evidence.
Police only looked at Costin again when some of the 1993 complainants approached a senior drugs squad officer, who was at the school to give a talk, and shared their concerns.
Costin was finally arrested in 1995 and convicted in 1996.
Oxford
Eleven years later – one year after his requirement to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register expired – Costin was abusing children again.
By 2007, he had relocated to Abingdon in Oxfordshire, where he began sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy.
After grooming the boy, who believed his relationship with Costin was consensual, Costin persuaded him to introduce his young girlfriend into the abuse as well.
The abuse lasted years before an investigation was finally launched because Costin was repeatedly spotted hanging around outside an Abingdon school.
In October 2011, Costin was convicted at Oxford Crown Court of abusing the two teens, from the Vale of White Horse area.
The court heard he had taken them on camping trips, plied them with alcohol and cannabis and molested them.
He was convicted of seven counts of sexual activity with a boy between the ages of 13 and 15, and four counts of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl.
Judge Tom Corrie said Costin had “corrupted” his victims.
“You provided these young people with what must have been a teenager’s dream: somewhere where they could drink and take cannabis,” he said.
“You were very careful, while encouraging them to overindulge, not to do so yourself, so to exploit them.”
Back to Romford
By the time of his prosecution for the Abingdon offences, Costin was back in Romford, living in Lincoln Avenue.
He had also managed to become the chairman of Millwall Rugby Club, on the Isle of Dogs, despite being a convicted paedophile.
The club issued a statement in 2010, when he appeared in court over the Abingdon offences, saying it had ended its relationship with Costin.
It said he “did not have, nor sought, any meaningful involvement with the youth section of the club”.
But at his Oxford court case, alongside the 11 counts of abusing the Oxfordshire teens, Costin was convicted of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old boy in east London’s Docklands.
The court heard he had attempted to perform a sex act on the boy inside a vehicle outside Millwall Rugby Club.
Costin received an indeterminate sentence for the 12 Oxford convictions – meaning he was to be kept behind bars until he was deemed safe for release.
“I have no doubt that you are a predatory paedophile,” Judge Corrie told him.
More offences
Costin remained behind bars for public protection more than 13 years later, as his latest trial began.
He had appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court in 2023 and admitted numerous sex offences against boy scouts in Romford in the 1980s, then in Suffolk in the 1990s.
However, the law banned the Romford Recorder from reporting these guilty pleas, or any of his past convictions, as he was denying eight specific offences, meaning he would have to stand trial.
But a jury has now found him guilty, once again, of plying children with booze and drugs in order to prime them for molestation, convicting him on seven out of eight charges.
They found he had molested children as they slept at scout camps and even sent 'love letters' to his victims.
He will be sentenced at a later date.
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