NEIGBHOURS who watched the football-loving 14-year-old with the quiet parents growing up never imagined that he would be the sort to cause serious trouble. But one Sunday afternoon last summer, driven on by exposure to hardcore pornography, he raped four primary school girls in a park in Salford.

Something about the boy, who cannot be named, appears to have changed in the months before the assaults. He appeared in court for shoplifting and using racist insults and was excluded from school for foul language. Nothing, however, could prepare the close-knit community for what happened next.

Shortly before 6pm on June, 10, last year, he approached the girls — a seven-year-old, two eight-year-olds and a ten-year-old — while they were playing tag near swings in Mandley Park, Higher Broughton.

One of the girls recognised him and they so they followed him to a secluded area of the park to play a game. There he suggested that they play “rude dares”.

This rapidly escalated into an ordeal in which he forced them to take turns performing a series of sex acts behind a tree. A fifth girl, also aged 10, refused to take part and ran for help, but no passer-by believed her account of what was happening.

At Manchester Crown Court yesterday, the boy, now 15, pleaded guilty to four charges of rape. He denied a further four sex offences alleged to have happened in January but these were ordered to lie on the file.

The court was told that, in the opinion of the forensic psychiatrist who examined the teenager, he was inspired to carry out the offences by the violent sexual images he had seen. David Steer, QC, counsel for the boy, said: “He had been exposed to extreme and crude pornographic material at the time of these offences.”

The boy was sentenced to four years in a young offenders’ institution and will spend a further five years on licence after his release.

Morris Greene, for the prosecution, described how the boy became increasingly aggressive after leading the girls to a wooded area in a quiet area of the park where he forced them to commit sexual acts.

One girl later described how he threatened to kill her if she failed to submit to his demands. Another told how he would “leather them” if they attempted to escape.

A police investigation was begun that evening after the girls walked home and told their parents what had happened. The teenager was arrested the next day and subsequently identified by his victims.

Mr Steer told the court that the teenager was entirely unsophisticated, of “borderline mainstream intelligence” and undoubtedly immature. He also had a short attention span and had a tendency to act on impulse.

The boy’s use of foul language had already caused him to be excluded from school and his mother often lost track of her son’s whereabouts.

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