RAPIST who was caught with his flies undone following a sex attack was yesterday jailed for seven years.

A jury at Preston Crown Court heard that ex-soldier Andrew Fardella, 33, picked up a young prostitute in his Mercedes and held a cheese knife to her face.

During the ordeal he also ran the knife up her thigh and told her he wasn't going to pay for sex.

Julie Taylor, prosecuting, told the court that Fardella picked her up in his car, having agreed a £20 price and drove to the Pleasington area of Blackburn.

She said: "He said he was going to have sex with her for free."

The court heard that the victim, who had turned to prostitution in a desperate move to fund her heroin addiction, thought she was going to die during the attack.

There he had sex without her consent and while holding a cheese knife close to her face.

When quizzed by police, Fardella maintained it had not been rape, but a transaction between a customer and a prostitute. Fardella of Abraham Street, Blackburn, denied raping the woman in the early hours of April 17 last year.

After the attack he told her not to bother going to the police as she was a prostitute and no one would believe her.

Police attention was drawn to the car as it was moving slowly with the interior light on, and officers noticed that his flies were undone.

Fardella was arrested when the girl told police she had been raped.

He told the jury no force was used, and he paid for sex.

Ken Hind, defending, said Fardella had lost his ten-year-old child in a road accident in November.

Judge Robert Brown told him "The fact that she was working as a prostitute is irrelevant to the sentence that has to be imposed.

"She is just as much entitled to protection as any other woman."