Girl, 12, admits harming boy
A 12-year-old girl today pleaded guilty to inflicting actual bodily harm on a five-year-old boy who was apparently hung from a tree.
The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also admitted a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice when she appeared before magistrates at Dewsbury Youth Court.
Her victim was found wandering alone with red ligature-type marks around his neck and bruises on his body following the attack in a Dewsbury wood in May this year.
At an earlier hearing the court was told how the boy, who was hung from a tree with a piece of string, escaped death by only a matter of seconds.
Home Office Pathologist Christopher Milroy examined the youngster after he was rescued from his horrific ordeal.
The pathologist looked at the boy’s injuries and confirmed that “firm pressure” had been applied to the boy’s neck and throat with a length of string.
He told the earlier youth court hearing: “If applied for a few seconds longer there is a strong likelihood that (the boy) would have died.”
At the same hearing in Dewsbury, prosecuting counsel Mr Mehran Nassiri said both the little boy, and the 12-year-old girl who attacked him, gave conflicting accounts of what happened in the woods.
Initially the girl blamed the attack on other children and gave police four different names.
“That information led to the arrest and detention of people for a significant period. ”
“The four kids were left in a harrowing position,” the prosecutor added.
They later gave “foolproof” alibis that proved their innocence, he said.
In one interview the girl claimed the boy had followed her. She claimed she was with friends who put the rope around his neck and pulled him up. She was just watching, she claimed.
The confused little boy was interviewed in short bursts by specially trained officers who tried to gently coax the information out of him.
He gave a series of confusing and at times bizarre accounts of what happened.
In one account he said he was strung up and beaten with sticks and nettles. At some point a rope was wrapped around his neck, stomach and genitals, the court heard.
In another interview the confused youngster said he thought he was in the jungle, with monkeys surrounding him and a pair of scissors were used to cut him down.
Eventually the teenage girl confessed she was the only one present in the woods and was responsible for the horrific attack.
She told officers: “(The boy) was behind me. I didn’t ask him to come with me. I was angry with him. I put a rope around him and put it around a tree.”
Magistrates were told the youngster was found in the early evening by a family relation who went looking for him when his worried mother raised the alarm.
He was discovered outside a chip shop “scared and crying”, the court heard.
