A COVENTRY youngster began misbehaving and self-harming after being subjected to sexual activity by an older teenager six years ago.
After confiding in a friend, the victim eventually told his mother what had happened, and the police were contacted last year and arrested Shane Holmes.
After initially denying two charges of sexual activity with a child, he changed his pleas to guilty just days before he had been due to stand trial at Warwick Crown Court.
Holmes (22) of Palgrave Road, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, was sentenced to four months in prison suspended for 18 months, and was ordered to do 120 hours of unpaid work and to register as a sex offender for seven years.
Prosecutor Andrew Wallace said that Holmes and his family had previously lived in Coventry, and the other boy, who was about two years younger than him, lived in the same area of the city.
There had been some sexual contact between them on two occasions when Holmes, who would have been 12 at that time, got the younger boy to perform oral sex on him.
Holmes’s family then moved to Great Yarmouth, but returned to Coventry for a visit in 2012, when Holmes would have been 16 and the boy 13 or 14.
He went to the boy’s home, where the youngster was playing computer games in his bedroom when Holmes arrived.
In the bedroom Holmes pressurised the boy into performing oral sex on him, which the boy said lasted about ten minutes and which he described as ‘horrible.’
Holmes then performed the same act on him for a matter of seconds before leaving the room.
At the time the boy did not feel he could tell anyone what had taken place, but it preyed on his mind and affected his behaviour as he also began to self-harm.
He finally confided in a friend when he was 17, and last year told his mother, and the police were contacted.
Holmes was arrested and when he was interviewed he ‘accepted the substance of the allegations,’ added Mr Wallace.
After reading a report on Holmes, which recommended a non-custodial sentence with participation in a ‘Maps for Change tool kit,’ Recorder Nicholas Syfret QC said he would not be imposing an immediate prison sentence.
He explained: “Six years have passed, and there has not been the slightest repetition of this type of behaviour. He has matured, and has put this behind him.
“I can’t see what is constructive in the Maps for Change, and in fact it runs the risk of re-opening part of his mind to those things that he has now resolved. I think it would be counter-productive.
“When a programme is being put forward, it should be to address a particular problem. If the problem isn’t there, it could be counter-productive.
“I am not sending him to prison, but he must continue to be aware there is a victim in this case, and that victim has suffered.”
