An 18-year-old boy, who was 14 years old at the time of his offences, pleaded guilty on 13 December to charges related to the penetration of a 15-year-old girl. Additionally, he is also being accused of instigating the girl 11 months later to bury the body of the dead baby after she had given birth to the child, according to TODAY.
The boy faced 2 charges in court, and his identity cannot be disclosed due to a court order protecting the identity of the victim.
The first charge pertains to the alleged penetration of a minor where he had intercourse with the then-15-year-old girl, which is said to have taken place at a Housing Board flat sometime in July 2020.
The second charge stems from an incident on June 10, 2021. It is claimed that the teenager urged the 16-year-old girl to conceal the birth of her child. Allegedly, this involved secretly burying the baby’s dead body in an undisclosed location.
What happened?
The then-14-year-old boy started dating the 15-year-old girl who was his classmate back in 2020, and they started having intercourse at his home without protection because he was too young to buy condoms.
In January 2021, the girl suspected that she was pregnant and asked the boy to buy a pregnancy test kit online, where it was confirmed that she was expecting, but they hid the news from her family.
The two then tried to abort the baby via methods that they found online, including buying abortion bills online and even letting the boy punching her in the stomach and kneeing her abdomen to get rid of the child.
On 10 June 2021, the girl was at home when she started going into labour and video called the boy to tell him that she was about to give birth.
She ended up giving birth to a stillborn son alone in her bedroom on 11 June at about midnight and cut the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors.
The boy then told her to cut the placenta into small pieces and discard it by flushing it down the toilet bowl, as well as burying the dead foetus.
The girl then wrapped the baby in a newspaper and hid it in a cabinet but the boy told her that it was too risky to keep at home.
Two days later, the girl buried the dead foetus in her garden, where she would occasionally sit there to grieve. The two then broke up in March 2022.
The following month, the girl’s mother noticed that she was very quiet and asked her what’s wrong, and the girl then told her about everything that happened, and the body of the dead baby was then recovered by the police.
Legal Repercussions
Under the Penal Code, it is a criminal offense to hide a birth by discreetly disposing of a deceased body, regardless of whether the child passed away before, during, or after birth.
The boy is set to return to court in January for his sentencing.
In the event that he is found guilty of penetrating a minor, he could face a maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment, along with fines or caning.
If convicted of abetting the girl in concealing the birth of her child, he may be sentenced to a maximum of two years in jail, a fine, or both.