UNITED KINGDOM
Lancashire Telegraph

By Peter Magill, Chief reporter

A SCHOOLGIRL who confided that she was being sexually abused by a Jehovah’s Witness was then repeatedly molested by the man she had turned to for help, a court heard.

The 12-year-old was ‘infatuated’ with Eugene Nugent, who was in his early 20s, and ‘followed him around like a puppy’, jurors at Burnley Crown Court were told.

But after the girl, a member of a Jehovah’s Witness family in Haslingden, told Nugent that a senior member of the congregation had been sexually assaulting her, he also began abusing her, the court heard.

Nugent, now 53, is accused of inciting her to commit sex acts at his home, the garage where he worked, near Grane Reservoir and in a shed.

Prosecutor Sara Dodd said that on one occasion, while his wife was out of the house, he also had full sex…