October 2009: At Hayes, Middlesex, an eight year old girl tells her mother she has been raped by two ten year old boys.
This is actually a very serious case, at the time of the allegation, both boys were ten years old, though by the time of the trial, one was eleven. They were alluded to in court only as Child A and Child B.
No one should suggest this is anything akin to the truly dreadful case of Thompson & Venables, it was merely a case of children at play.
Initially, the girl told her mother the boys had raped her, though it remains to be seen if she actually understood at the time what rape is. One of the boys said he didn’t know what sex was. Do you believe that? They were playing in the park, and, she said, the two boys dragged her to a secluded spot and pulled down her underwear.
The girl told her mother “The boys have been doing sex with me”; she didn’t like it, and wanted to go home, but they made her, and told her not to tell anyone.
Under cross-examination she agreed they had not dragged her, and that she had gone with them voluntarily. She had some bruising and was scratched, but this appears to have been caused when they climbed over a fence in the park. She was taken to hospital with stomach pains, but this appears to have been unrelated to whatever happened in the park.
In spite of her admission she had lied and had not been sexually violated, the judge refused to stop the case, and on May 24, both boys were convicted of attempted rape, both by majority verdicts.
The headline in The Sun on May 25, 2010 was BOYS, 10 GUILTY OF RAPE BID – Pair UK’s youngest sex fiends – so typical, so vile. Even the NSPCC said the trial process was all wrong.
Their conviction led to a review of the way such cases are handled.
An appeal was heard very quickly, and was dismissed, but the Court Of Appeal was not happy with the way the case was handled. In August 2010, the boys were each given a three year supervision order. Taking them to the woodshed would have been far suitable.
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