A paedophile scout leader has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two more boys in Romford and Suffolk.

Michael John Costin, 59, pleaded guilty to molesting one boy in Romford in 1983 and another in Suffolk in 1994.

It means he has now been convicted of molesting four Havering scouts in the early 1980s. 

He admitted the latest Romford charge at Snaresbrook Crown Court last month, but the Recorder could not report the plea because it was not yet known whether he would admit or deny abusing the Suffolk boy in 1994.

If he had denied it and opted to stand trial, it would have been an offence for us to publish any more stories about his admissions and convictions until after that trial had ended.

However, Costin today (June 24) pleaded guilty to the 1994 Suffolk offence as well, via video link from prison.

Costin is already in HMP Pentonville, serving an indeterminate sentence for older child sex convictions.

He is such a prolific abuser, who had so many offences under investigation in recent years, that this was the second time his admission to serious abuse was rendered unreportable by a further pending prosecution.

In 2022, Costin admitted molesting three scouts in Rush Green, where he volunteered as a scout leader in the early 1980s at St Augustine’s Church.  

But the Recorder was legally barred from reporting that he had confessed to 14 offences in Romford and Suffolk, as it could have prejudiced his impending trial over eight more alleged Suffolk offences.

Prosecutors later won a legal application to reveal the guilty pleas to jurors as “bad character evidence”, finally allowing us to report them.

In mid-February, that jury convicted him of seven of the eight further Suffolk allegations.

But after that trial, the Crown Prosecution Service decided to charge him with abusing two more boys.

Costin – who already had a string of child sex abuse convictions in Suffolk, Oxford and east London – will be sentenced at Snaresbrook next month for all 23 of his recent Romford and Suffolk convictions.

So many victims are expected to attend and read impact statements that two days are being allowed for the sentencing.

Judge Alex Gordon today said a second courtroom may have to be used, with a live video link to the first, to accommodate all those expected to attend.

They include some of Costin’s trial jurors, who said they wanted to return to court to watch him receive his sentence.

Prosecutor Walton Hornsby that for all the offences Costin has pleaded guilty to, he insists his victims “were all effectively willing and active participants in what he was doing to them”.

He said the Crown did not accept this “basis of plea”, but also did not consider it proportionate to call the victims to court and ask them to give evidence.

Judge Gordon said that “bearing in mind that I’m sentencing for an unknown number, but certainly a great deal of indecent assaults” - including those the jury convicted Costin of despite his denials - his “basis of plea” for those he had admitted would not make “a great deal of difference” to his overall sentence.