One of Britain’s most notorious paedophiles is facing a long jail sentence after he admitted the historic abuse of a five-year-old boy.

Keith Morris was the subject of questions in Parliament when he was released on bail rather than remanded in custody pending his sentence in 2007 because of prison overcrowding.

He has now admitted a series of offences which pre-date the 2007 case, in which he received an indeterminate sentence, of which he served seven years.

He has a long history of offences against young boys and in the past has he has given police a shocking interview about how he groomed them for sex.

Morris, aged 57, formerly of Drewsmead, Ilsington, Newton Abbot, but now of Bodley Close, Exeter, admitted 10 counts of indecent assault or indecency when he appeared at Exeter Crown Court.

They were all committed against the same victim when the boy was aged five to nine in the 1990s.

They happened after he had served a three-year sentence in 1989 for other assaults on boys but before he received the indefinite sentence for public protection 10 years ago.

That was imposed for a sexual assault on a vulnerable 15-year-old boy with learning difficulties and caused a furore when the victim’s family complained that he would be eligible for parole after four years. In the event he was freed after seven.

Judge Geoffrey Mercer, QC, adjourned sentence until January 26 and released him on bail. He told him to expect a jail sentence.

At the time of his previous sentence, the prosecution revealed the chilling account which Morris gave to police of his paedophile urges and his grooming techniques.

Prosecutor Mr Terry Holder said: ‘He said he was more attracted to young boys before they reached puberty because they were easier to persuade.

‘He said he would begin by wrestling with them over their clothes to get them used to him and take it further step by step.

‘He said he told boys not to tell their parents and gave then sweets and he was sexually aroused by the element of control.

‘He was to say that his sexual attraction for boys would never go away and he deals with it in the best way he can.’