Guilty pleas accepted from youth in sex case

The boy, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had been due to stand trial at Bradford Crown Court yesterday, but his guilty pleas to six allegations of sexual activity with girls under 16 were accepted by the prosecution.

The 16-year-old, who was himself aged 14 and 15 at the time of the offences, denied four alternative allegations of rape and one of attempted rape.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC told the teenager he took an exceptionally serious view of his case.

But he told the teenager that his guilty pleas had gone a long way towards sparing the victims, who also cannot be identified, further trauma.

The court heard that an aggravating feature of the case was the fact that threats had been made to the victims to prevent them from reporting incidents.

The offences all took place between June 2008 and December last year.

Matthew Bean, prosecuting, told Judge Durham Hall that the guilty pleas had been accepted following a lengthy conference involving police officers and the reviewing lawyer.

He indicated that the ordeal of giving evidence in court had been one of the primary considerations in the decision.

Mr Bean said the families of all the complainants had been spoken to briefly and the position explained to them.

He added: "Letters are being sent out to all the families today and meetings being offered to each of the families."

He said the reviewing lawyer had agreed to meet with the families to ensure they were kept fully in the picture.

Judge Durham Hall adjourned sentence until August 20 to allow time for a pre-sentence report to be prepared. The boy was remanded back into custody.