[A] SCHOOLBOY on trial and accused of rape has admitted lying to jurors during an earlier court hearing.
The boy is one of four teens aged under 16 who deny two rape charges, and a further sexual assault allegation. It is alleged they carried out a “brutal sexual attack” on a 15-year-old girl in a field on the evening of January 3 last year.
On day seven of their trial at Carlisle Crown Court today (TUES), a second boy gave evidence. Jurors have already been told that a previous trial on the same allegations had got under way before being aborted when the judge was taken ill.
And, while in the witness box today, the boy admitted elements of his current evidence were different to that given during the earlier trial.
“It wasn’t the truth,” the boy conceded of one particular point.
His barrister, Robert Wyn Jones, asked: “Is the truth what you have told us today about these things?”
The boy replied: “Yes.”
Earlier in the day he had spoken of having consensual sex with the girl, telling jurors: “She was all over me, the way she was acting.”
He stated during cross-examination that the incident was not discussed by any of the boys when they gathered together later that evening nor, he said, had they talked about it since.
The trial continues.
