Ex

Chambers joined the Billy Don't Be a Hero hitmakers in the mid 80s

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Disgraced former Paper Lace guitarist John Chambers used his connection with the band to seduce a starstruck boy and abuse him. The youngster was given booze, offered cigarettes, and Chinese takeaways - all things he would never have had at home, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

Chambers, who played with the Nottingham chart toppers in the mid-80s, will be sentenced on Wednesday (August 30) after pleading guilty to eight charges of indecent assault. "He resides in the fact he will probably spend the rest of his life behind bars," said Denney Lau, mitigating, on Tuesday (August 29).

Chambers, now a childless 73-year-old who is deaf in one ear, says he will probably "die a lonely man in prison," said Mr Lau. Bass guitarist Chambers joined Paper Lace in 1983, almost a decade after the original members of the band had a UK number one with Billy Don’t Be a Hero. In the same year, 1974, the band topped the US charts with The Night Chicago Died.

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Despite his local celebrity and taste of fame, Chambers was secretly a paedophile. He abused his victim - who knew he was in Paper Lace - and "used his connection with Paper Lace to seduce him", said prosecutor Liz Muir. "He was starstruck," she said of the boy, who cannot be identified as a victim of a sexual offence.

"He was given alcohol and Chinese takeaways - all things he would never have in his home environment".

Recalling Chambers touching him, the victim said he "lay like a brick as it was going on", and had asked Chambers afterwards, "if that made him gay?" Chambers, of Crowley Close, Bilborough, had laughed it off, the court was told, and all he used to say was, "this is good clean fun" - which his victim had described as Chambers's motto.

The victim's statement, read in court, said he had been in very dark places in his life - and thinking was his enemy. "I couldn't escape my thoughts and my own mind," he said.

He spoke of the cigarettes, nice cars and strong lager, and how it made him feel important and special. But he said sexual abuse is "not clean" and it has ruined his life.

Miss Muir said: "During this period John Chambers was a member of Paper Lace. This was a well-known band and previously had a number-one hit with Billy Don't Be a Hero.

"This gave members of the band a considerable level of celebrity status in Nottingham and the surrounding area".

The court heard how the abuse continued after Chambers took the 12-year-old boy to former Paper Lace roadie and former boyfriend Andrew Polkey's flat and left him there, dropping him off for that specific purpose, the court heard.

Polkey, previously of Glade Hill Road, Arnold, sexually abused the child after giving him cannabis. The 56-year-old committed more indecent assaults on the boy, once when he gave him Viagra, and indecent assaults on two more boys who were young teenagers.

Polkey previously admitted 17 charges of indecent assaults and now faces jail. He has a previous conviction from Ipswich Crown Court for downloading indecent images of children and one of distributon. His 12-month prison sentence, on April 7, 2017, was suspended for two years.

Alongside them in the dock was Matthew Mardell, 46, of Glade Hill Road, who is waiting to learn his fate after he pleaded guilty to two indecent assaults on one of the same boys as Polkey. Mardell plied the child with cannabis. The sexual activity happened when Polkey was on the road.

Katrina Wilson, mitigating for Mardell, said the two charges he faced were on a single occasion. He now lives alone and "the highlight of his life is an occasional cigarette and a cup of tea," she told the court.

* Paper Lace was a hit band who had three hits The Black Eyed Boys, Billy Don’t Be a Hero, and The Night Chicago Died, which was a number 1 hit in the USA.

The band lost their rights to the name in 1983, and the band that emerged from that point included John Chambers, a member of a band that had ownership of the name and no association with the original band members. The original band still perform today.