Holiday camp paedophile magician jailed

A COSTA-based British paedophile, who claimed to be friends with footballer David Beckham, has been jailed for six years.

It comes after Ivan Russell’s fiancee Georgie Lamb, 44, exposed her partner’s 18 years of child abuse.

The pair had moved to Malaga in 2005, where Russell, 42, found work as a magician working up and down the Costa del Sol.

According to his fiancee, life had been perfect until in June 2010 Lamb overheard him talking about sickening images of children he had stored on his laptop.

It soon emerged that the children’s entertainer – who once met David and Victoria Beckham in a restaurant on the Costa del Sol – had been abusing children at holiday camps over a period of 18 years.

He apparently used a photo of himself with the famous couple to convince youngsters he was Becks’ personal magician.

Lamb, a writer, said: “I could not believe what I was hearing; it was one of the worst moments of my life.

“The children hero-worshipped Ivan because he pretended he knew the Beckhams and at one point he even tried to get me to pretend I was Victoria Beckham on the phone, but I refused.”

He was convicted of 12 counts of indecent assault, one of indecency with a child and four of sexual assault.

On conviction, the judge at Northampton Crown Court, described him as the ‘most selfish individual I have ever come across’.

Police are still trying to speak to possible victims of Russell, who worked as a children’s entertainer at youth camps in the UK and various locations throughout the Malaga province.