Pleas over boy rapist 'ignored'

A judge has criticised a social services department for failing to take an 11-year-old boy into care weeks before he raped a disabled youngster.

Judge Beatrice Bolton said the attack on 8 June would not have happened if Sunderland City council had not "ignored" a psychiatrist's advice.

Newcastle Crown Court heard that Dr Stephen Westgarth had twice recommended that the offender be placed into care.

The boy was sent to a secure detention centre for four-and-a-half years.

If something had happened and if you had moved away from home you would not have done this to the boy Judge Beatrice Bolton

The court heard that the offender, from the Sunderland area, raped the nine-year-old boy after bribing him with Pokemon games.

He attacked him after luring him to his bedroom on the pretence of playing on his Xbox games console.

Judge Bolton, sentencing the boy, said: "It is a great pity that Dr Westgarth wrote to social services on March 23 recommending that you should be placed in care and that his letter appears to have been ignored.

'Serious review'

"He wrote again on May 26 and he received no reply and nothing happened.

"If something had happened and if you had moved away from home you would not have done this to the boy."

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was ordered to spend another three-and-a-half years on licence once he is released.

Jan Van Wagtendonk, independent chair of Sunderland Local Safeguarding Children Board, said after the hearing: "The board is undertaking a serious case review in respect of a young person in order to learn lessons from this case.

"The review is an independently chaired process with an independent overview author and partner agencies are not in a position to comment further until the executive summary report is published."