One woman, who wished to remain anonymous, spoke to the BBC after Ruben had admitted 17 of the offences he was jailed for.
She met Ruben when she was a child, when he would come to their school to sing religious hymns in assembly and ran a church club in Clifton in Nottingham.
“I always thought he was a nice man,” she said.
While staying at Stathern Lodge, she said she would never see him at nighttime as he would be looking after the boys’ side.
She said: “We didn’t have to pay a penny, so even my mum at the time thought it was a bit dodgy, but I kept begging her because all my friends were going.”
The woman also recalled playing a game where a person would eat chocolate blindfolded.
“There wasn’t really any harm done by it back then anyway,” she said.
“You don’t look for things like that and I’ve never felt anything by it with his sweets and his chocolate games.”
However, after hearing of the crimes Ruben had admitted to, she described him as “absolutely vile”, adding: “I can’t believe I’ve been let around him.”
“We never suspected a thing with him at all. But I don’t know, the boys might have to say something different, but I don’t know. I can’t speak on behalf of them,” she said.