A pregnant 11-year-old girl who has twice been raped by teenage boys should have a termination, a High Court judge has ruled.
Mrs Justice Arbuthnot was told the victim fell pregnant earlier this year, after being raped by a 14-year-old boy she “met on the internet”, when aged just 10.
She was raped by another 14-year-old boy, a few weeks later, when she was 11, the judge heard.
The judge was asked to rule on what was in the best interests of the girl after hearing details of the shocking case in a private hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London.
In a written ruling on Wednesday, Mrs Justice Arbuthnot said having termination was in the victim’s best interests.
She also ruled that the placenta should be used for the “purposes of forensic testing in a criminal investigation”.
It comes after health authority bosses had asked the judge to rule that ending the pregnancy was in the girl’s best interests along with taking tissue from the placenta for forensic testing.
The judge also ruled that children involved cannot be identified and has not named the “health board” which began litigation.
Mrs Justice Arbuthnot said the girl lived at home with her parents, but social workers had “safeguarding concerns” about the care she was receiving at home from her mother and father.
“She became pregnant after being raped by a 14-year-old she met on the internet when she was aged 10, on the 18th or 21st of May 2023,” said Mrs Justice Arbuthnot.
“She was raped by another 14-year-old boy on the 11th of June 2023, but he did not make her pregnant.”
The judge said a health board had applied for “declarations that termination of pregnancy would be in her best interests” and that it would be “in her best interests for tissue taken from the placenta to be used for the purposes of forensic testing in a criminal investigation”.
She concluded that both moves were in the girl’s best interests.
