A 13-year-old boy who carried out sexual attacks on a woman and three teenage girls as he walked home in his school uniform has avoided a custodial sentence but will be sent to a specialist therapeutic unit for at least 18 months.
A judge told Shrewsbury crown court on Friday he had “absolutely no idea” why the boy attacked a 16-year-old, two 17-year-olds and a woman in her 30s in four separate incidents in Telford, Shropshire.
In each case the boy grabbed the complainants simply because they were women on their own, and persisted with the assaults as they tried to fight him off.
Judge Lowe heard how the defendant tried to rape two of the victims – who were 16 and 17 at the time – after they fell to the ground as they struggled with him.
Lowe said it was “undoubtedly a very, very difficult case”, adding: “I have absolutely no idea what the driving force is behind these offences.”
He said it was clear the boy had a “distorted view about sexual intimacy” and a “distorted view about women generally”, but added: “There is no explanation for why he has these distorted views or, more importantly, how they are going to be rehabilitated.”
The judge told the boy he would have been jailed for eight or nine years for the offences of attempted rape and sexual assault if he had been an adult.
But he explained to the court that any custodial sentence would have to be reduced to three years for a 13-year-old, and that would mean he would be released in 18 months.
Lowe said he was worried detention would provide no rehabilitation and the defendant would “come out bigger, stronger and more sexually active without these issues ever having been addressed”.
He told the court this left him with a “stark choice” between custody or an attempt at some form of rehabilitation. The judge opted for a youth rehabilitation order with a supervision order for 30 months after hearing he would be housed at a specialist therapeutic unit for at least the next 18 months, where he is already engaging with the programme.
He said he had to “balance what a 13-year-old needs and what society needs when women are seriously accosted in the street for no reason”.
Earlier, the court heard impact statements from each of the complainants that outlined how they had become fearful of going out after the attacks and developed mental health problems.
The judge also said he had heard details of how the boy’s parents had separated after a period of “unhappiness”, but his family life had been relatively normal. He said he had been told that the boy claimed he had acted “out of anger and low mood” and how he had “feelings of hopelessness” but claimed the attacks were not motivated by sexual gratification.
Addressing the boy, the judge said: “Even as a 13-year-old, you have to look inside your head and try and work out what on earth made you behave that way.”
The boy was found guilty of two counts of attempted rape and seven sexual assaults at Kidderminster youth court last month.
The attacks happened in December 2022 and January this year.
