A Northern Beaches family was torn apart and forced to move after their 12-year-old son was accused of rape.
The mother has revealed that when she spoke to her son about the charges, it was ‘very hard for him to understand’ what exactly he was being charged with and said that he was ‘innocent’.
She explained that he had to tell him what the words ‘indecent assualt’ and ‘sexual intercourse’ meant, and that he replied, ‘That is disgusting.’
The mother of a 12-year-old boy accuse of rape said that her son didn’t understand the charges
Magistrate Jeffrey Hogg threw the charges out of Bidura Children’s Court, citing an ‘absolute absence’ of DNA evidence and ‘insufficient’ medical evidence.
But despite this, the boy’s mother told the Manly Daily that they were forced to leave town after people had taken to calling her son a rapist.
She said that the nasty name-calling had begun before the court had made their decision – which was to dismiss the charges against him.
The charges accused two 12-year-old boys of raping a six-year-old girl multiple times between June and August, 2016.
In dismissing the charges, the magistrate said that the boys were ‘incapable of of developing the criminal intent to understand the moral wrongness of the alleged acts’.
Mr Hogg dismissed three charges of sexual intercourse without consent against the boys, explaining that the court had heard ‘changing stories’ from the girl in two separate interviews.
The Director of Public Prosecutions subsequently withdrew seven charges of indecent assault.
Three charges of sexual intercourse without consent against the 12-year-olds were dismissed
But despite being pronounced innocent, both families were asked to withdraw their boys from school and eventually, they were forced out of the local area.
The mother lamented that the situation had ‘spiralled out of control’, but that the family bears no ill will towards the girl.
‘We are not bad people, we just want to move on with our lives,’ she said, adding that she feared her son would be physically abused by other children.
She said that both families had suffered huge financial losses when they sold their homes.
When she spoke to the publication, she said she ‘did not want to point fingers’ and declined to comment on the way the situation was handled by the school or the local authorities.
A child psychologist said that 12-year-olds cannot understand the seriousness of their actions
Child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg said the impacts of the entire process on all three children could be profound.
He explained that many 12-year-old boys can be impulsive, and that their brain isn’t fully developed.
‘You expect 12-year-old boys to do stupid things,’ he said. ‘[They] don’t understand the seriousness of your actions for what may have been innocent on their part.’
He also said that the boys will have undergone very significant disruptions to their peer relationships.
‘Some friends’ parents might not have wanted them to play with the boys anymore, he said. ‘They have relocated geographically. Moving school is a major disruption.’
Mr Carr-Gregg also said that the six-year-old girl may not have had the cognitive capacity to know what was going on, but that the experience still would have been ‘very frightening and traumatic’ for her.