A former Church of England vicar could face life imprisonment as he is set to be sentenced for a third time for child sex offences.

Ifor Whittaker, 80, admitted rape and gross indecency of a young boy in the vestry of St John The Baptist Church in Sedlescombe, East Sussex, in the 1990s, where he served as a priest at the time under the name Colin Pritchard.

He is already serving a 16-year-sentence for abusing a boy between 1987 and 1991 following a trial in 2018, and had previously been jailed for five years in 2008 for the abuse of two children in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, between 1979 to 1983.

This is a very serious case, it’s life or a very long sentence

At Hove Crown Court on Tuesday, Judge Gary Lucie adjourned the sentencing hearing to consider the jail term.

“This is a very serious case, it’s life or a very long sentence, I need to work my way through all of that,” he said.

The court heard that Whittaker had baptised the boy whom he later went on to abuse in the incident at the church.

Prosecutor Beverly Cripps said the victim described to police being terrified during the attack and that he tried to bury the memories of what happened to him there but “it had come back to him in pieces over the years”.

The sentencing hearing has been adjourned until November 19.