A former Lancashire landlord raped an eight-year-old girl and sexually assaulted others who he had groomed with gifts and drugs.
Carl Marland threatened to kill the primary school-aged child is she told anyone what happened and held a knife to her neck afte raping her. The dad-of-four was found to have cartoon images he’d made which showed him in bed with an eight-year-old victim.
Marland, who has previously worked at pubs in Lancashire, was living in London at the time of the offences and travelled to Greater Manchester to visit the girls and carry out his attacks, the Manchester Evening News reports. Prosecuting, Vanessa Thomson told Manchester Crown Court that Marland groomed his victims by giving them gifts of clothes and money, as well as cannabis and cocaine.
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He took out a £75 per month iPhone 12 contract for one victim and would drive the girls around in his car, where some of the abuse took place. After raping the eight-year-old, Marland told the victim he would kill her if she told anyone what he had done to her, the court heard. On another occasion, Marland sexually assaulted the girl before holding a knife to her neck.
Marland told another teenage victim they could ‘be together’ when she turned 16 and threatened to kill himself if she did not express that she loved him, the court heard. During a shopping trip to the Arndale Centre, he pulled his trousers down in front of the girl.
Marland offered another victim money if she spoke to him on Snapchat and ‘kept him busy’. The court heard that he groomed the girl, who was 15 at the time, by offering her cannabis and cocaine and paid her £60 for a photograph of her face and £100 for an image in which she was naked from the waist up.
After becoming suspicious about gifts her daughter was receiving in the post, the mother of one victim found ‘inappropriate’ Snapchat and WhatsApp messages from Marland on her daughter’s phone. Police and social services were alerted and he was arrested in London in January of last year.
Officers seized a ‘Rambo-style’ knife and a Samsung mobile phone, which Marland had used to contact his victims. Upon examination of the phone, officers found cartoon images Marland had created of himself and the eight-year-old girl in bed together.
Officers also uncovered videos Marland had secretly filmed of one of the girls getting undressed. In one piece of footage, he discussed having sex with a victim. Marland attempted to convince officers he was impotent and was therefore ‘not capable of doing the things he was accused of’.
In a victim impact statement, the mother of the youngest victim said her daughter’s talent and self-esteem had been ‘snatched away’ after she was abused by Marland. She recalled how her formerly ‘fun-loving and care-free little girl’ had become ‘emotionally unstable and self-conscious’ and said she often heard her crying uncontrollably during the night.
“The pain I go through each day knowing I’m unable to take away what she has been through is torturous,” she added. Another victim told the court she no longer felt safe around men and was unable to leave home unaccompanied.
Marland previously pleaded guilty to engaging in sexual communication with a child, three counts of sexuality activity with a child, two counts of making indecent photos of a child, three counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and two counts of voyeurism.
A jury convicted him of a further 11 charges following a trial last year. They were four counts of rape of a child, five counts of sexual assaulting a child, causing a child to watch a sexual act and assault of a child by penetration.
Mitigating, Michael Goldwater, told the court that prior to the offences, Marland had lived a ‘perfectly creditable working life’ as a pub landlord.
Over the course of nearly three decades, he worked in a total of 34 pubs - two of which were in Spain - and helped to run Pubwatch schemes in Stockport and Lancashire.
“Until this happened no one questioned his behaviour of character in any way,” said Mr Goldwater. “I’m not going to speculate on what made a man of his age behave in the way which the jury found him to have behaved.”
Judge Rachel Smith passed a 21-year extended sentence, including 17 years in prison and an extra four years on licence. Marland will have to serve two-thirds of his 17-year prison sentence before he can be considered for parole.
Judge Smith told Marland he had inflicted ‘severe psychological harm’ on the youngest of his victims and said she believed there was a ‘significant risk’ of him reoffending. “I consider it necessary to impose an extended sentence in order to protect the public in the future,” she said. “You will not be released for some time.”
Marland, of High Street, Ilford, East London, was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order and an indefinite restraining order in relation to all four victims. Following the hearing, Detective Constable Andrew Sanderson, from GMP’s Child Sexual Exploitation Team, said: “Marland spent the majority of 2020 travelling from London to Manchester in order to commit these offences, some of which are the most serious offences against children.
“These crimes have had a huge detrimental impact on his victims and their families, and has essentially stolen their childhoods. I would like to praise the victims’ bravery in reporting these crimes. Hopefully following this sentencing they can have some closure and begin to move on and rebuild their lives.”