‘Danger predator’, 19, locked up for sexual assaults on 3 girls
JON MACPHERSON
A‘DANGEROUS sexual predator’ who twice raped a teenage girl and committed sexual offences against two others has been locked up.
Former Accrington Stanley under-16s footballer Joshua Stanley met a 14-year-old girl in Great Harwood before raping her in a ‘secluded wooded area’.
He raped her for a second time at a house later the same day.
The 19-year-old, of Clegg Street, Haslingden, also had underage sex with a 14-year-old girl and sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl after they met through social media.
Preston Crown Court heard Stanley was a ‘serial risk taker’ who was ‘willing and determined to have sex with people in criminal circumstances’.
The 19-year-old boasted to the probation service that he already had ‘50 to 100 sexual partners’ by the time he was 18 and Judge Knowles QC said he ‘certainly wanted the danger of being caught’.
He was found guilty after a two-week trial of two counts of rape and three other sexual assaults against under age girls.
Stanley met with one of the 14 year old girls after contacting her through social media and suggested they go for a walk on a woodland path in Great Harwood.
The court heard how Stanley raped her at a place he could have ‘very easily been spotted by any member of the public out for a walk in broad daylight’.
The victim made it ‘crystal clear’ she didn’t want to have sex and ‘pleaded for him to stop’.
The court was told that after the incident she was left ‘so shocked, so brutalised, and so unable to cope or comprehend what happened’ that she ‘acquiesced with his suggestion’ to go back to a house with him.
The court heard how the victim underwent the ‘horrific experience’ of having to pick out Stanley in a police identification parade.
Judge Knowles QC said Clegg was a ‘dangerous offender’ and gave him a 16-year extended sentence and made him subject to an indefinite sexual harm prevention order and restraining order.
He was told that he must serve at least eight years at a young offenders institute before he is eligible for parole and then must serve the remainder of the sentence on extended licence.
Bury College student Stanley met up with the first victim, also aged 14, after they started chatting on social media.
Stanley, met the victim at a house and gave her alcohol before having sex with her.
Judge Knowles QC said Stanley had ‘cultivated her’ and ‘took his opportunity when it arose’.
The court heard how, at his trial, the victim ‘expressed a determination not to let what [Stanley] did to her affect for the rest of her life’.
Stanley met up with the second victim, a 12-yearold girl, after initial contact on social media and sexually assaulted her.