Child rape trial under fire

The two boys were 10 at the time of the attempted rape of an eight-year-old girl, which took place in October last year.

Kidscape director Claude Knights said that allowances made by the court for their age, including the judge and barrister removing their wigs and gowns, did not go far enough.

"It should not have been held in an adversarial court room. This can be intimidating to older people let alone children of this age," she said.

She added that it would have been more appropriate to hear the case in camera, whereby the press and public are excluded, and the defendants should have been able to give video testimony rather than be subjected to cross-examination.

She also called for England and Wales to adopt a similar system as the Children's Panel in Scotland, which hears cases of children under the age of 16 and has a strong focus on welfare issues.

Alison Saunders, chief crown prosecutor, CPS London, said: "Any case involving young children is always difficult and calls for the most sensitive handling. In this case the allegations made by the young girl were very serious. She has the same right to the protection of the law as an adult and that is why, after very careful consideration of all the evidence, the case was put before a jury. The decision to prosecute was not taken lightly."

But Katy Swaine, legal director at the Children's Rights Alliance for England, said she feared international human rights laws had been breached.

"International human rights law requires safeguards to be put in place to protect the rights of children involved in criminal proceedings, whether the children be defendants, victims or witnesses. We are concerned that these safeguards may not have been provided in the conduct of this distressing case in the Old Bailey," she said.

"The placing of two young children on the sex offenders' register is likely to be open to legal challenge. We have to move towards a more civilised and rational approach to these kinds of difficult cases: the UK is required under the Convention on the Rights of the Child only to bring children to criminal courts as a very last resort."