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900 children victims of sex attacks in schools
Aline Nassif29 Jun 2009
Almost 900 young boys and girls have been subjected to sex assaults including rape in London's primary and secondary schools in the past five years, according to new Met figures.
Children as young as four have made allegations of rape and a senior Met detective wants more victims to come forward.
Commander Mark Simmons said the total of the reported sex assaults in independent and state schools could be as little as 10 per cent of the real number occurring.
He said: "We want to encourage young people to come and tell us what has happened to them. We want to assure them action will be taken. We already have 180 full time officers attached to specific schools across the capital."
The Met figures, released for the first time, show 52 children under the age of 18 were raped in primary and secondary schools since 2004. In that time a further 763 were the victims of other sexual assaults such as "penetration and inappropriate touching".
Rape convictions rose in one year by 60 per cent to 32 in 2008/9, while the number of alleged rapes soared 50 per cent, from 10 to 15, in the same period. Overall, alleged rapes have more than doubled in five years and reported sex assaults have shot up from 165 in 2004/5 to 246 in 2008/9.
Mr Simmons said police only refrain from pressing charges when "consensual sex" is overwhelmingly apparent. He said: "In a small minority of cases, boys under the age of 13 are having sex with girls under the age of 13, which is technically illegal but consensual."
The figures refer to cases on school grounds, but some came to the attention of police from school sources. This explains why the youngest victim of an alleged sex attack is only two years old. Mr Simmons says the "peak age" of victims is 12 to 14, and mainly girls, but there are cases of boy being raped.
Reader views (1)
Is this not surprising.Consider, that sex education is now being introduce into schools to 5 year olds, Harman wants to lower age of consent to 14 , paedophillia is being encouraged by the EU....
- A Trebilcock, Manchester uk, 29/06/2009 15:19
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