The parents found out but did not alert the authorities
Leicester Crown Court
A man who sexually assaulted a younger girl when they were children has been spared immediate custody. The 20-year-old defendant appeared at Leicester Crown Court for sentencing after admitting a string of sexual offences over several years against the girl, who was the foster daughter of his parents.
He had been about 11 when the girl, who was three years younger than him, came to live with his family in a Leicestershire village. When he was about 14 he committed his first offences against the girl, who has been left having night-terrors and self-harming due to the offending.
The man – who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim – admitted two counts of sexual assault, two of oral rape and two of assault by penetration against the girl when she was aged 11 and 12. He also admitted a further six counts of sexual activity with a child when she was aged 13.
Prosecutor Mike Thatcher said: “She engaged with a game of Truth of Dare with the defendant when she was very young.
“The consequence of that game was that they kissed and he saw her naked.” He said the sexual activity escalated from there.
About three years after the offending had started, the parents came home to find the girl’s bag packed to run away from home.
The girl, then 13, told them what had happened and they stopped allowing the children to be alone together but did not report it to Leicestershire Police.
It was only in 2024, when the girl told staff at her school, that the police were informed about what happened. The defendant admitted everything in his police interview.
The sentencing hearing was told by Mr Thatcher that the abuse – which the boy had “boasted of to a friend” – caused the girl trauma.
He said: “Her self-harm became more frequent and a lot more severe. She said, ‘I would scrub my skin every time I had a shower in the hope I wouldn’t feel as disgusting’.”
In her statement she also said she suffered night terrors about him touching her.
The girl said she had attempted suicide 12 times in four years and been admitted to hospital six times within a four-month period.
Eddy Leonard, representing the man, said he was “owning up to his wrongdoing right from the beginning” after the girl told their parents what had happened.
She said: “He was clearly immature. He didn’t have experience of an intimate relationship or any engagement with the opposite sex.
“Things started off as games and spiralled out of control.”
She handed the judge “glowing” references from his parents and his girlfriend, who he has been in a relationship with for the past three years.
She said: “He is full of remorse, so ashamed of what he has done and what it has done to her.”
Judge William Harbage KC told the man: “This is an extremely difficult sentencing exercise. Both the defendant and the complainant were so young at the time and this case has taken a long time to get to this stage.”
He said the effect on the victim had been “extremely profound” and that if the man had committed the offences while an adult he would be facing a jail sentence of around eight years.
Commenting on the parents’ lack of action, he said: “It was for them, not her, to alert the authorities. They did not do so and it was only two years later that it came to light.”
He added that the defendant “didn’t fully recognise the harm he was doing”.
The man was sentenced to two years in youth custody, suspended for two years. He will have to complete 240 hours of unpaid work and will be subject to a curfew, banning him from leaving his home between 8pm and 6am every night for the next three months.
He will also have to spend 35 days on programmes recommended by the Probation Service and sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for the next 10 years.
