Padiham molester had attacked another girl years earlier

As Nigel Pepe Marcola, now 47, admitted indecent assault between January 1999 and December 2000, at Burnley Crown Court, it was revealed the then 14-year-old victim, who was targeted several years before two other girls, went to the police after reading about Marcola’s trial in the local press.

The court was told the petrified 14-year-old, who was drunk and had been smoking cannabis before the defendant struck at his house, thought the gun was real and that it would go off and blow her up.

She felt if she had come forward earlier she might have prevented the assaults on the two other girls.

Judge Beverley Lunt, who had earlier told Marcola he had turned his home into a modern day “gingerbread house” to attract girls, said he had taken advantage of a girl arriving at his house already drunk.

Marcola, living at Stockbridge Road, Padiham, when he enticed the two girls there, but of Talbot Street, Colne, before he was jailed, was given 12 months to run after the six years.

The court had earlier heard how the defendant had plied the two 13-year-old girls with drink and drugs for sex in 2008.

He was convicted by a jury of five charges of sexual activity with a child, one count of offering to supply ecstasy and two allegations of supplying cannabis.

Joe Boyd, prosecuting, said the victim made a complaint after reading local press reports on Marcola’s trial, last February.

She told police she had been asleep fully clothed on a settee at the defendant’s house and the next thing she remembered was being naked on Marcola’s bed with him on top of her.

She couldn’t speak or react. The defendant committed sex acts on her.

Philip Holden, for Marcola, said the 14-year-old had been very drunk when she arrived at his house.

The court could not be sure Marcola was respon-sible for taking the girl upstairs, removing her clothing or that he had drugged her to get her into that state.