A 10-year-old girl told an Old Bailey court in London yesterday she was raped and indecently assaulted when she was nine by five of her school classmates who were aged nine and 10. The children are believed to be the youngest charged with rape in England.
The girl cried as she told the court the five boys - one of whom was her cousin - stripped her and fondled her before three of them took it in turns to rape her. She gave evidence via a video link.
Two of the boys are charged with rape and two with indecent assault. The fifth boy was aged nine at the time of the attack and is therefore too young to stand trial. The two boys charged with rape had just turned 10 at the time of the attack. All four boys deny the charges.
Special measures were taken to ensure the boys were not intimidated by their surroundings. Neither the judge, Mrs Justice Bracewell, nor the lawyers wore wigs and the boys were allowed to sit at separate tables with their relatives and legal representatives. They were also provided with colouring books. One boy sucked his thumb as he listened to evidence.
The girl was allegedly attacked during the lunch break at her London school. As she was dragged into the lavatories, a classroom assistant saw one of the boys and asked what was going on, but the other boys had pushed the girl into a cubicle and covered her head with her coat so that she couldn't scream. The assistant, unaware of what was happening, left the building.
"When I heard the teacher I was going to scream but they put my coat over my mouth," the girl said. She said the boys were laughing during the attack and after it when she was getting dressed.
"They told me to get dressed and they said if I told the teachers they would beat me up," she said.
The girl went to see the school secretary but merely told her she had fallen. The cousin involved in the alleged attack stayed at the girl's home that night making it difficult for her to tell her mother. She did tell her mother some boys had told her to strip but did not elaborate after her mother criticised her for not "hitting back". She tried to get out of going to school the next day but her mother sent her in with a note asking the headmistress to investigate the incident.
The boys were interviewed and one of them admitted touching the girl with his penis, but they all said that she had consented. All five boys were arrested and the four were charged in August, 1997.