Child of 11 raped - at what age should kids be out on their own?

There is a question in this post, so bear with me while I set the scene with this story.

 

I read during the week that a girl of 11 was raped in a park and on another occasion in toilets at a Mc Donalds restaurant (this happened not so far away in the UK)  Apparently, they first approached her on a public transport bus.

 

One boy, the ringleader, was just 13 when he carried out the first attack on the girl in September 2009.

 

He dragged the girl into the bushes at a park, and raped her while another boy watched. He then invited her to his house, where she asked him: ‘If I do it, are you going to leave me alone?’.   The ringleader then raped her again, before inviting a queue of up to eight other gang members to do the same.  The victim wept throughout the attacks and asked the boys to ‘stop it’, but they simply told her to stop crying because it ‘made it look like they’d done something’ to her.

 

She later told police: ‘They didn’t ask me if I wanted it or not.’

 

Six months later, in March 2010, she was attacked in the toilet of a McDonald’s restaurant in East Ham, East London, by the gang member, then 14, who had heard about the previous rapes.

 

He followed her into the toilet and raped her while his friends waited outside the door. After the attacks, members of the gang bombarded the victim with texts and phone calls warning her not to tell anyone about what had happened.

 

Yesterday, the ringleader, got 5 years and  the teenage gang member who raped the then 11 year old girl in the McDonald’s toilet will serve only six months behind bars after an astonishing ruling by a judge yesterday.

 

The judge said the boys preyed on the ‘vulnerable and lonely’ victim over a number of months. They subjected the girl to a series of horrific rapes before trying to intimidate her into staying silent. But incredibly, one of them was locked up for just one year yesterday after the judge said the victim’s unwillingness to have sex ‘may not have been obvious’ to him and he deserved ‘very great credit’ for pleading guilty.  He will more than likely get out in six months.  That 6 months for rapping an 11 year old girl in a McDonalds toilet.

 

It’s an awful outcome for the girl who’s life is ruined.  It took alot of courage for her to come forward and yet the sentence doesn’t reflect the seriousness of the chrime.

 

HOWEVER, this blog post isn’t just about the crime or the appalling sentence the boys received.

 

I have a screaming question which I need to ask.   At what age is it ok to allow your child out alone on their own?  To places like McDonalds and the park.

 

My friends may think me an over protective mum – I worry a lot.  I know that.  But sometimes on the way to school each day, I see small children walking on their own.  I know for most of them nothing will ever happen but sometimes things do happen and I wondered what age is ok to allow kids out on their own?  Do I (or you) want to be the mum in the news or should I protect them so that they are stiffled beyond belief yet safe.  I don’t want to be that mum either.  So where is the balance?

 

My friend allows her 8 year old child cycle to school each day – the school is on a busy main road and the journey is approximately 2.5km.  I think this is just wrong – I haven’t told her.  This isn’t about me judging her (I love her to bits – it’s this one thing I don’t agree with but it isn’t right for me to question her parenting skills – or is it?).

 

The little girl involved in this case was described as vulnerable and lonely child – she doesn’t sound like a child that should have been wandering the streets on her own.

 

Her life has changed forever – unlike the boys she has a life sentence for the rest of her life as she remembers what happened to her and how she was treated by the courts in giving such light sentences.  But as her mum, I couldn’t forgive myself for allowing her to be in that situation.

 

So I ask, and I ask this in the context of having two young girls with this ahead of me.  At what age is it ok for kids to walk to school on their own?  And at what age, do you allow them trips to hang out in the shopping centre/McDonalds/parks on their own?