A former children’s television presenter and Jackanory storyteller has admitted sexually assaulting a boy almost 60 years ago.

Author and Dartmoor expert John Earle was a teacher at a private preparatory school in Okehampton when he carried out the assaults between 1957 and 1961.

The school closed in the early 1960s and he went on to present a short lived children’s programme called Treasure House between 1964 and 1965.

He became a familiar figure on television in the late 1960s as co-presenter of the science show Tom-Tom from 1965 to 1970, where one of the other stars was a young Jan Leeming.

Earle went on to narrate two Jackanory stories during the show’s heyday in 1971, where other storytellers included Spike Milligan, Roy Kinnear, Brian Blessed and Milo O’Shea.

The Jackanory appearances marked the end of his broadcasting career and he moved on to buy a farm on Dartmoor which he converted into a moorland exploration centre with bunk rooms.

He ran the Dartmoor Expedition Centre at Rowden Farm, near Widecombe-in-the-Moor until it was sold last year, hosting countless groups of teenagers who were undertaking adventures with the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, the Princes Trust, and the Ten Tors challenge.

He became one of the leading experts on trekking on the moors and wrote guides entitled Walking on Dartmoor, Walking on Exmoor and the Quantocks, A Boot up Dartmoor Tors and A Boot up Dartmoor Rivers.

Earle, aged 87, now of Upton Pyne, near Exeter, admitted six counts of indecently the same boy when he was aged nine to 13 between September 1957 and August 1961.

Three other offences are not being pursued.

The case at Exeter Crown Court was adjourned by Judge Mr Justice Dingemans so his defence barrister Mr Nicolas Gerasimidis can obtain medical reports.

The judge told him: ’All sentencing options, including immediate imprisonment, will be available to the court.’

He ordered Earle to sign on the sex offenders’ register immediately. He ordered the probation service to prepare a pre-sentence report.

Mr Richard Crabb, prosecuting, said the victim had been consulted and Earle’s pleas are acceptable.

Mr Gerasimidis said: ’We are in the process of obtaining medical records. The defendant has a number of underlying conditions, principally related to his old age.’

Earle was a teacher and deputy head at Upcott House Preparatory School in Okehampton at the time when the offences were committed against a boy aged nine to 13.

The school, with 53 pupils, was owned and run by his father at the time but later merged with another school and moved to Highampton, near Okehampton, before closing.

The building which housed it is now a country house bed and breakfast and some of its former grounds are now a supermarket.