14 year old 'gets away with it'

This may be controversial but could it not be that making a huge fuss about what happened will be at least as harmful to the little girl as the actual offence? I think my approach would be to say to her 'Oh, isn't xx a silly boy, doing a daft thing like that'. I am not saying he should not have been reported, just that some experts have given their opinion that being physically examined for signs of assault can be as distressing to a child as the crime itself. The girl may feel dirty - as often happens with adult victims and the more she asked to talk about it the more it is likely to be imprinted on her mind.

I cannot understand people who pour it all out to newspapers

We all feel for the little girl. And for her parents. That goes without saying.

I can't see that counselling could make any difference. Would only serve to concentrate her mind on it. Hope the parents aren't making too much of a show in front of her too. Far better at that age to distract her.

How distressing for them POGS. I can only begin to imagine what this family is going through, and to have the boy still living near must feel horrendous for them. I don't know if they live in local authority housing, but if they do there will be priority offers to move the boy and family out of the neighbourhood via the public protection panel. Hope that's the case.

Heartbreaking to read the suffering of the little girls mother today.

She said she was physically sick and collapsed on the floor crying when she heard what had happened. 'Now I panic when she's not here and I don't like her being out of my sight.' 'There have been days where I just can't stop bursting into tears and I feel sick all the time. I can't cope anymore'.

The little girl still remembers her ordeal and is waiting for counselling. They still live yards from the boy, how difficult is that too.

Her dad said 'It's horrible to go from feeling like such a proud parent to feeling like the worst parent in the world for letting this happen' I think most of us on GN can empathise with them surely.

The boy was a neighbour and looking after her whilst her parents were at their other sons school play. I'm sorry I absolutely feel for them and I think over the years this family will be the ones suffering the most.

Sorry. Got name wrong. nanaej.

Totally agree nanajae.

It is a very sad case. Extremely sad for the young victim and her family. Hopefully they will get high quality support to help them manage and overcome the distress and hurt the hve suffered. But also a 14 year old child has lost his childhood too. If we ( i.e.society) want this child to be able to realise the damage/hurt /wrong he has done/caused and change so he can lead a useful and positive life then he needs support too. punishment alone will not do that. I consider he has also been abused, in a different way, by his exposure to pornography.

The parents in this case apparently only left the 14 year old in charge while they attended a school function with their older child - a couple of hours at most. The father said he had considered the boy to be polite and responsible, and that he knew the family well. In those circumstances I'm sure a lot of us would have thought it would be OK. You just never know.

Deciding whether to leave a child in the care of a 14 year old boy depends on the circumstances. I wouldnt leave a 14 year old boy babysitting if I was going out for the evening but if I just wanted to nip to the shops, assuming they werent too far I would think it a reasonable thing to do.

When my children were young I belonged to a babysitting group and several of our members with daughters would not let the husbands of members babysit for them.

Incidentally, as far as I am aware, we do not know what sort of pornography the boy had been watching. The judge called it "vile"; it's possible that it involved children.

Yes, indeed. They will never really get over it.

In the end, whatever has been done will still have the potential to be devastating for the child and her parents. The trauma of being attacked can often be as damaging as being persuaded or treated 'gently' (not the right word, but I hope you know what I mean.

Yes, I think I can see what you're saying, when, although whatever method he used it has been classed as 'rape' and most people will take that as the usual method and judge him accordingly. (I'm not saying details should be revealed in the media, but it's inevitable that people drawn their own conclusions).

Anagram he would have taken the risk that a child so young would not understand or tell - thankfully, he was wrong, and he's likely to have been stopped in his tracks before he tries anything again.

There's a well-respected psychologist and researcher called Professor David Finkelhor who looked at the accessibility of potential victims of abuse, and in some studies he talks dispassionately (and he is a very nice, caring man in real life) about abusers wanting a 'receptacle of convenience.' This means that this particular child was accessible because she was separated from her parents, he had the opportunity, and he was motivated at that moment to do it. The method he used (and I won't mention it here) was his way of rationalising that he wasn't doing much harm. This level of distorted thinking will be deconstructed with him, and all the weaknesses in his potential to do harm will be strengthened so he has a bpmb-proof plan for avoiding ever getting in such a situation again.

I still don't understand why he thought such a young child was an appropriate target for his experimentation. It's that aspect which concerns me, although I appreciate we aren't given all the facts in the media.

Generally, children who access abusive images on the internet will be resilient enough to deal with the shock of what they have seen and put it down to experience. I remember other pupils passing round such material in maazines when I was a teenager and most of us were shocked and amused at the same time, but it was not a priority for us and we could leave it in its place. It's the isolated children, or those who do not have guidance to compare what they are seeing with what is more appropriate, that I would be concerned about. Many satisfy their curiosity and move on - very few return to it again and again, and when they do so in the company of peers who react appropriately, they won't come to much harm. It's the remaining (very) few who develop an inappropriate interest, or even worse, get hooked by online predators.

It appears this 14 year old did not come into the 'concern/high risk' category when he was assessed, which enabled the judge to take the action he did - he wouldn't have done this independently, but would have considered several reports, including the actions from a public protection panel, whose members would have discussed the incident at length, and heard or read the views of the parents of the child who reported the abuse - well done that child - she knew at 4 that she should tell her parents so they could protect her. She's probably a bit wiser than them for leaving her with the boy. I'm not saying 14 year old boys are a risk - generally, when they have a close bond, as with siblings, this brings a degree of protection for the child.

It's a shame that several people on this thread wouldn't leave their child with a teenager. In the US most teenagers between 14 and 19 babysit for extra money. Of course rules are laid down : reasonable phone calls, no visitors,leave some food in the fridge. This has been done for years, we did it without any problems whatsoever. Of course we had guidelines - we would have had a recommendation from friends or know the teenager and his/her parents etc. Most of the babysitters were girls but the best one was a friend's 15 year old son. Not only did he help my son with his homework, he read them stories before bed and stuck to our rules re times of bed and so forth. He is now in his 40's and my son and his wife visited the family recently. Had he been abused I don't think he would have. This is an isolated case this boy who abused the girl, certainly not the norm for boys of this age, it's typical of the papers to frighten everyone like this.

Should of course have been 4 or 5 year old!

I take on board what has been said about a 14 year old's raging hormones, and if the victim had been a 13 or 14 year old girl I could understand, if not condone, his actions. But a 44 or 5 year old! What was he watching that made him think that was OK?

It was discussed at length on The Wright Stuff this morning. Apparently, the judge took the view that the boy had been corrupted by watching hours and hours of porn on his parents' computer.
Before we all decide that our grandsons are not watching porn - it was stated that 8 out of 10 under-14s watch it regularly. They can get it on their mobile phones. It gives boys a completely false impression of what sexual relations should be.

Newspapers are full to the brim with lies and this case is confidential re both parties involved. So there are few "facts" that they can publish.
Inappropriate stuff for the media to be pontificating about in this way.

POGS the newspaper article I linked to said it was a little girl.

Well, the case makes it pretty obvious you can't trust all adolescent boys on their own in a house with a stranger's young child of the opposite sex. Hormones are very strong at that age. And when they've all got the internet on their phones, how do you know which is going to be the one that gets carried away.

I don't think a fourteen year old boy would be mature enough to look after a young child anyway.

j04.

What a question, are you assuming all 14 year olds are potential sexual abusers?. If that's the case all hope is lost.

I do not know why he was left with a 14 year old but I do not think this is a major issue. I would not judge the parents I am actually sorry for them. They will never be free of the guilty feeling.

It does not take away from the fact it is the boy I feel desperately sorry for and to me his problems should be the priority and where compassion should lye, not the older boy.