A YOUTH has been spared a custodial sentence after he pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual activity with two 14-year-old girls in his school’s toilets.

A district judge said the boy had treated the girls “really quite badly” and told him he should apologise to them.

The youth’s solicitor, Andrew Craven, claimed both girls agreed to having sex. The boy, who is from a village in the Selby area, was 15 at the time and is now 16.

The court heard the encounters, which occurred on separate occasions, took place after texts had been sent in the days leading up to them, but one of the girls has learning difficulties, and prosecutors were concerned about whether full consent was given.

Sandra White, prosecuting, told the court one of the girls went to the girls’ toilets, and the boy followed her in shortly afterwards, “took her by the arms, pushed her into a toilet cubicle, and took off her clothes”.

Andrew Craven, mitigating, said the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, “had recently started to experiment with sex and relationships, with the unfortunate outcome that he has ended up before this court for these offences.

“It is quite clear that all the acts that have taken place are all consensual and have all happened with some degree of pre-planning.”

District Judge David Kitson told the boy: “You have pleaded guilty to three offences of sexual activity with a child, though you would probably look at it as sexual activity with people you were at school with.

“Perhaps other friends and acquaintances were doing the same thing, but the fact they were doing it does not make it legal.”

Judge Kitson also expressed his concern about the extent to which the youth may have taken advantage of the girls, but said the incidents may have been consensual and this was acknowledged in the prosecution.

The judge said: “Not withstanding this was consensual sex, it does seem to me you have treated these two girls really quite badly.

“You ought to have known better and a letter of apology would not go amiss.”

The youth was issued with a 12-month referral order for each of the three incidents, to run concurrently, and his father was ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs.