UK convicts two 11-year-olds of rape attempt

Two 11-year-old boys, convicted of trying to rape an eight-year-old girl near her home last year, were given supervision orders today.

The boys, believed to be the youngest children to stand trial for rape in Britain, were found guilty of assaulting the girl near her home in Hayes, west London, last October when they were just 10.

Prosecutors said the boys approached the girl when she was playing with a friend near her house. The girl was assaulted in a block of flats, a bin shed and a field.






She told police the boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had taken her scooter, thrown it into a bush and refused to get it back unless she did what they said.

They were cleared of rape but convicted of attempted rape. A jury at London’s Old Bailey court rejected claims by defence lawyers that the boys — one of whom was described as a model pupil by his teacher — were just being naughty or playing a game like doctors and nurses.

Sentencing them to three-year supervision orders, the judge Justice Saunders said: “I do not accept that what happened was a game but I do accept that you did not realise how serious what you were doing was.”

He said that to impose any sort of custodial sentence would be “counter-productive” and not in the best interests of the boys, the Press Association reported.

The boys, who had been told in advance that they would not be locked up, chatted excitedly and looked round the court as they were brought in at the start of the brief hearing.

The judge and barristers dispensed with wigs and gowns, as they had done during the trial, and the boys were allowed to sit in the well of the court with their mothers and solicitors.

“The jury decided that you did something very wrong which if you had been older would have very serious consequences for you,” the judge said.

“Because you are so young, the court is mainly concerned with doing what is best for you with the aim of ensuring that you do not do anything like it again. That means you must be helped to understand the seriousness of what happened.”

The boys were told that if satisfactory progress was made the supervision orders could be shortened. They will also be placed on the sex offenders register for 2-1/2 years.

“It may sound from all this that I am forgetting the little girl involved. I do not,” Saunders said.

“Everyone will sympathise with her for what she has gone through. Not only what happened to her as the victim of these offences, but also to have to give evidence about them.

“I hope that she will be given all the help that she undoubtedly deserves to get over her experiences. I very much hope that she and her family will not be forgotten by the authorities.”