Move to secure accommodation in best interests of teenager raped in care – judge

A 17-year-old girl with a history of mental health difficulties who was raped after going into council care and being placed in a specialist residential unit should move to secure accommodation for her own good, a family court judge has decided.

Three men accused of offences were found not guilty and events had taken a significant toll on the youngster, Judge Judith Moir said.

The judge said the teenager had relied on others and been let down.

Detail has emerged in a ruling by the judge following a private family court hearing in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Judge Moir said the teenager could not be named.

She said police working on Operation Sanctuary, a Newcastle-based inquiry into sexual crime involving men and vulnerable teenagers, had been involved in the girl’s case.

The judge said social services staff at Newcastle City Council (pictured), which has responsibility for the teenager’s welfare, had asked her to approve a move to secure accommodation.

Staff highlighted a list of incidents where the teenager had tried to harm herself.

They said only secure accommodation would keep the teenager safe and give her a chance to get the therapy she needed.

The teenager wanted to stay at the unit where she was living and said she would feel that she was “being punished” if moved to secure accommodation.

But Judge Moir concluded that a move to secure accommodation for three months would be in the teenager’s best interests.

In late 2014 a High Court judge imposed civil court injunctions on 10 men from the Birmingham area who had sexually exploited a teenage girl in local authority care, following ”bold and novel” legal moves by council bosses.

Police had said there was insufficient evidence to secure criminal convictions against the men.

But Mr Justice Keehan imposed injunctions barring the men from contacting the teenager, and from approaching girls they did not know, following applications by Birmingham City Council.

The judge also ruled that the men, who faced jail for being in contempt of court if they were found to have breached the orders, could be identified in media reports.

Mr Justice Keehan, who analysed evidence at hearings in the Family Division of the High Court in London, said he hoped more local authorities would use civil courts to target men who sexually exploited vulnerable girls.

Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2017, All Rights Reserved.