A devastated mum has told how her 12-year-old son was accused of rape, arrested in his pyjamas and chucked in an adult police cell overnight – only for his accuser to admit 14 months later the sex was consensual.
The schoolboy had his life turned upside down and was thrown out of school with the false accusation hanging over his head after strict bail conditions meant he was prohibited from being around any females aged under 16.
The mum of the youngster – who we cannot name for legal reasons – told The New Day her innocent boy’s life has been “flipped upside down” and revealed the horrifying extent to which she was let down by police and social services.
“It felt very much like a case of guilty until proven innocent,” she revealed.
“My poor boy was treated like an adult on a brutal sex charge.
“He was terrified, and this will now affect him for the rest of his life.”
The schoolboy – who we will refer to as Tom – lost his virginity to his accuser at a friend’s sleepover in November 2014.
He was 12 and stayed overnight at a boy pal’s home. The girl was 13, but Tom’s mum had no idea she would be there.
Three days later police came knocking demanding to speak to her son but officers would not tell her why.
“I was so confused,” she said. “I thought maybe he had been in a scuffle, I was getting ready to tell him off for stealing a bike or something.
"He has never been in trouble, he is cheeky but he is a good boy. He was in the top sets of everything at school, he was popular, teachers loved him.
“I’ll never forget it. I went to his friend’s house to get him with the police.
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"I ran in before them and asked him what he had done, he was playing the computer in his pyjamas and he looked at me in total confusion and said, ‘I haven’t done anything, mum’.
“The next thing I remember is us leaving the house and the policeman saying he was arresting my 12-year-old baby on suspicion of rape.
"My entire world collapsed. I thought there must be some stupid mistake.”
Tom was taken to a nearby police station where he was booked in and taken to a cell.
“I remember screaming. I was saying they couldn’t take him to the cells because he was only a child.
"They told me they wouldn’t be doing it if it was against the law. I felt helpless. I wanted to protect my child, and I could do nothing.”
Tom was taken to the cells at around 7.30pm and stayed there until 3.30am.
"In this time he was asked to give a semen sample, a DNA sample, had his fingerprints taken and had pubic hair collected.
“He was in the cell next door to adults,” his mum continued.
“Grown men were brought in and put next to him, he was terrified. I was fighting to get him home.
"In the end they agreed I could take him home as long as I had him back for an interview at 10am the next day.
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“It was hours of torture. They were already treating him like he was guilty.”
Tom was taken home by his mum and put to bed.
“I remember that night and so many others that followed I would just sit there watching him sleep, terrified.
"I had thoughts occasionally of running away with him. Protecting him seemed out of my hands.”
Tom then made a mistake of lying to police the next morning, saying he had not slept with the girl.
“This was done in panic,” his mum admits.
“I think he thought it would all go away but he had little grasp of how serious it was. When DNA came back he apologised and told us he was really scared.
“I always believed that he had not raped her, he doesn’t know what that means and it was his first time.”
Tom then spent a nervous 14 months awaiting a court case.
“Life stopped for him. Bail conditions meant he was pretty much housebound and it felt like everyone knew and everyone was talking.
I was scared to let him out of my sight in case someone hurt him.
“What angers me is that not once did we have a single call from social services.
"My argument is, if a 12-year-old is capable of rape, why are the professionals not asking questions about the family life? It is not normal.
“After being chucked out of school we eventually got Tom in a special school for boys with behavioural difficulties but it didn’t work because he was not like those children and he was scared. He lost a year of his education.”
In January this year Tom underwent a four-day trial in a youth court, 14 months after his initial arrest.
During the course of proceedings, his accuser admitted to the judge the sex between the pair was consensual and she had said it was rape so her boyfriend would not be angry that she’d had sex with someone else.
Tom was found not guilty. His emotional mum cries to this day when re-living the
verdict.
“I was not in the court when they acquitted him,” she says. “All of the family were there to support us and I felt like I was going to have a panic attack so I left the court.
“I will never forget him stumbling outside, running into my arms and sobbing.
"I couldn’t work out whether it was good news or bad because he was crying so much, but he managed to get out the words: ‘It’s over mum, not guilty’ and we cried together. I thought he was coping brilliantly but it was all pent up inside.”
Tom decided to leave his mother’s home in East Anglia following the ordeal and live with his father in the north of the country.
“He told me he wanted to get on with school and make something of himself in a different area.
“It’s been very hard not having him here but I’d never begrudge him a new start,” she says.
“He’s always welcome. I’m just pleased he’s not in prison for something he didn’t do.”
A police spokesman in the county where Tom was arrested explained “certain procedures are followed” when a child is arrested but it is not uncommon for a child to be placed in a cell for a serious crime, as the age of legal responsibility is 10.
“It is not unusual for us not to tell an adult prior to a child’s arrest what the child is being arrested for,” she adds.
“This is to protect the integrity of the investigation.”
