I confess

Detectives had to dig out the files on a cold case dating back to January 1985 when ex-soldier Wayne Marchant walked into a police station and admitted he had grabbed a 14-year-old Intake girl at knifepoint and carried out an indecent assault.

The 47-year-old had kept his guilty secret for more than two decades but last year convinced himself that advances in DNA tracing techniques would mean police knocking on the door of his flat, Doncaster Crown Court was told.

Marchant, who used to live in Cantley but moved to Shipley in West Yorkshire some years ago, pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting the girl as she walked along Westminster Crescent, Intake, on January 12, 1985.

Because the offence was so long ago the judge was unable to use more severe sentencing powers introduced for sexual offences since then and a short custodial sentence would mean he would not receive treatment on a prison sex offenders' programme.

The judge, Recorder Alistair MacDonald QC, imposed a three year community rehabilitation order with a condition that he continues with mental health treatment.

Describing it as a "wholly abnormal" case the judge added: "I stress to the victim of this offence that I am hamstrung by the law and hope that making this order means that others will not have to undergo the ordeal she went through all those years ago."

Prosecutor Brian Outhwaite described how the girl was walking in darkness to meet friends when she was grabbed from behind.

He said Marchant put a hand over her mouth, dragged her behind a hedge and forced her onto the ground.

He showed her a knife and committed two sexual assaults before hearing voices approaching. He made off after telling the terrified girl to count to 100 until he had escaped.

Police enquiries at the time drew a blank and it wasn't until July last year that Marchant - who had in the meantime served a jail term for sex offences against a child - walked into a Leeds police station and said he wished to confess to a crime. Mr Outhwaite said publicity about historical cases being solved by advanced DNA techniques had convinced Marchant he would be apprehended.

When interviewed he admitted he had carried out the offence for "self-gratification" and he had followed the girl for some distance.

The victim, now in her 30s, told detectives she had been haunted ever since by the crime and still could not walk out alone at night.

Defence counsel Philip Standfast said Marchant had made a full and frank confession because of the overwhelming sense of guilt and his delusional belief that the police were looking for him.

He said: "He wishes to publicly express his remorse and guilt, which for some time has been welling up inside him."