Update: Released in 2016. Now living in Chichester, but continues to visit Alton & Bentley as he has family connections there

Note: Although Jamie Cain was convicted of the offences in 2007 when he was 15, he is now over 18 (now aged 26), therefore can be named. Photo attached is recent.

July 2007

Teenager sentenced to indeterminate period for raping and abusing young children

A 15-year-old boy has been jailed for an indeterminate period for raping an eight-year-old boy and photographing the attack.

The court heard that Jamie Cain also sexually assaulted a boy aged 10 and attempted to abduct a nine-year-old girl for sexual purposes, Winchester crown court heard.

The judge, Mr Justice Irwin, told Cain he was “at significant risk of reoffending” and was being locked up for the protection of the public.

“Time, care and treatment may reduce or abolish that risk, but it is certainly present now,” the judge said. “The impact of this offending on all three victims is considerable. One hopes they and their families will get the support they need and they will be able to recover.”

Mr Justice Irwin ordered that the teenager, who pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to the charges of rape, sexual assault and attempted abduction – all relating to children under 13 – would be eligible to apply for parole after serving six years, but only if he was considered safe to be released.

When Cain was arrested, police searching his home found underwear belonging to other young children who could also have been victims of attacks.

The first attack over which the defendant was charged was against the 10-year-old boy. The boy was approached close to Anstey Park in his home town of Alton, Hampshire, on November 10 last year.

The defendant put his hand over the boy’s mouth before telling him to take his clothes off. When the boy refused, he asked him to take his trousers off and said he would rape him.

Nicholas Rowland, prosecuting, said: “The boy at this stage was shouting. This scared the defendant off and as a parting shot he hit the boy to the head.”

Mr Rowland said the victim was “pale and shaken” when he was taken home by two 13-year-old girls who found him. His parents said in a victim impact statement that he had become more suspicious of strangers and his character had changed since the attack.

The other offences took place on December 4 last year when the defendant first followed a nine-year-old girl as she walked from school and asked her to follow him. She refused and ran off.

Mr Rowland said: “If she had gone with him she also could have been subjected to a sexual assault of some kind, as that was clearly what was in the mind of the defendant.”

He said the mother found her daughter crying and the parents said she suffered a delayed reaction to the attempted abduction, with nightmares starting earlier this year.

Mr Rowland said that 30 minutes later the defendant took an eight-year-old boy to a den he had made in a thicket in woods next to the park. He forced the boy to undress before he raped him and took photographs of the attack using a digital camera.

Mr Rowland said the victim’s character had also changed as a result of the assault and, according to his parents, he was less trusting of people now.

The court heard that when police arrested the defendant at his home they found the digital camera on which there were 12 images of the attack on the eight-year-old. There were also images of a naked three-year-old relative of the defendant, and a photograph of an unidentified eight-year-old girl.

Officers also discovered the defendant had accessed websites with images of sexual violence and had printed out some of the indecent images he had taken with his digital camera.

Mr Button said the defendant had the “normal” sexual urges of a teenage boy, but said his condition meant he was unable to express these feelings in a conventional way and that had led him to carry out the attacks. “The tragedy is that he doesn’t know how to prevent it happening again,” Mr Button said.

Mr Justice Irwin placed Cain on the sex offenders register and banned him from working with children.

He also banned him from being alone with children or communicating with minors without permission, and from using a digital camera unless for education purposes for five years.

Restrictions were also imposed on the defendant’s access to the internet.