Preface

Summary

In March 2005 a boy just 12 years old became the youngest person ever to be given a life sentence in Britain. The London Daily Mirror of 12 March 2005 (see facing page) reported the boy's conviction under the headline pure evil, with the subheading ‘Boy, 12, who raped teacher locked away for life’. The boy, who raped his special-needs teacher during a one-to-one tutorial and then stole her car, had been reported by his family doctor at the age of only three to be simulating sex with a teddy bear (a clear indication of sexual abuse in children), drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. At the time of his trial, the boy's mother, herself a heroin addict, was serving a prison sentence for the rape and indecent assaults of the boy and his two brothers. Summing up the case, the judge in the boy's trial was reported by the Daily Mirror to have said the following:

These problems are not of your own making. But it is plain that until they are dealt with you're very likely to commit other offences as serious as this. The public has to be properly protected. You raped this young woman. Physical injuries can heal relatively quickly, but injury to a person's state of mind takes much longer. You know that better than anybody – you were the victim of such an attack.