The schoolboys, who were accused of carrying out the offences when they 12, 13 and 14, broke down in tears in court after being found not guilty of rape this week
‘Clapping’ noises were heard and a voice telling the girl to ‘s*** it’ in harrowing footage played during a trial of three teen boys accused of raping a 13-year-old girl.
The boys, who were accused of carrying out the offences when they 12, 13 and 14, broke down in tears in court after being found not guilty this week.
Jurors were asked to determine whether the third boy, now aged 14 and previously deemed unfit to stand trial, had committed the acts near Newbold tram stop in Rochdale in February 2024, and whether he had encouraged the other boys.
After a fortnight-long trial at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court , the now 16 year old and the now 15 year old were both acquitted of rape, with all three cleared of two ‘joint enterprise’ counts.
The three boys denied the charges and said at trial it was ‘consensual’.
Tears and audible sighs of relief were seen throughout the courtroom as the jury foreperson announced the verdicts, reports Manchester Evening News, with one exhausted voice heard saying: “Jesus.”
Mobile phone footage of the incident was played to the jury in which ‘clapping’ noises could be heard, along with a voice telling the girl to ‘s*** it’. This footage had been ‘circulated’ among the boys and ‘others’, prosecutors said.
Jurors were told that ‘some’ of the incident was recorded on a mobile phone. The girl was ‘not asked if she consented to filming’, the court heard
Earlier in the trial, the jury was informed that the girl was ‘physically pushed and bent over forward’ during the incident. Prosecutor Kim Whittlestone stated that the boys then ‘all swapped’. She said it ‘would have been obvious’ that she ‘did not want this to happen’.
“It would have been clear that she was not consenting,” she told the jury. A friend accompanying the girl ‘intervened to halt what was happening’ and the now 15 and 16-year-olds fled from the scene, it was heard.
In closing statements from the defence, Rachel Shenton, who represented the now 16-year-old, said consent was ‘more nuanced’ than ‘please may I do this to you? Yes’. She added: “It starts with banter, and flirting, with someone walking into bushes. They are not middle aged people, these are adolescents.
“[The alleged victim] herself said ‘I didn’t say yeah’. Is that enough?” Ms Shenton said the girl had been ‘untruthful’ and said she flirted on the tram. The evidence, she told jurors, showed the girl had been ‘inconsistent’.
“[Her friend] told them to f*** off,” Ms Shenton added. “I asked [the alleged victim] if she told them to ‘f*** off’. She did not. She went into the bushes. I’m not seeking to throw shade at her. She is a young girl… immature. Why didn’t she shout? Why didn’t she scream?”
Ms Shenton said the girl had been embarrassed about being called a ‘sl*g’ by two strangers who walked past. She added: “How does she react? ‘I was raped’. It is a get out of jail free card. This was not a rape, it was a shameful encounter.”
Peter Gilmour, representing the now 15-year old-said: “These are children. We must not judge children by the standards of adults.”
He said his client was 13 at the time and had never had sex before, adding: “She was flirting with him on the tram. They talk on the tram about ‘sh**ging’. Over in the bushes she doesn’t shout or scream or push anyone away.
“If there was a point she had second thoughts, she didn’t give any indication. And she immediately regretted that and says to her friend she had been raped. She went into the bushes, she went willingly. Her answer was ‘I never said yeah’. How was he supposed to know?”
Following 9 hours and 46 minutes of deliberations, the jury found all three boys not guilty on all counts.
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