Boy is kidnapped at knifepoint by young Milton Keynes gang

Judge Catherine Tulk admitted that people may think she’d been “soft” but said the offenders were children in the eyes of the law.

She heard how the gang of three, all from Bletchley, were “hanging out on the streets” when they spotted the 15-year-old victim.

In a gangster-style attack in October last year, the younger boys produced a knife and told the teenager he would be hurt if he did not accompany them.

With their faces covered, they took him to a property in Bletchley, held a knife to his throat and made him take off his trousers and underwear. They then produced a mobile phone to take photographs, Aylesbury Crown court heard.

The boys, now between 14 and 16, were being sentenced for false imprisonment.

The ringleader received a Youth Rehabilitation Order for 24 months. Similar orders for 18 months were given to the other two boys. All three were also given supervision orders, a three month curfew and were ordered to pay the victim £50.

Judge Tulk said: “It is important at this stage to point out that in the eyes of the law, 13 year olds are children. I think its important that anybody who perhaps thinks I have been a bit soft, to realise I am sentencing you for what you did when you were children.”

She told the young trio: “You were just hanging out on the streets with nothing to do. He (the victim) was threatened with a knife and told that if he didn’t go with you, you would ‘chef him up’... The knife was held to his throat.”

“You covered your faces and when you got to the house, he was taken upstairs where the knife was held to his throat. He was told to take off his trousers and underwear and a mobile phone was produced.”

Judge Tulk took into account mental health, abuse and neglect factors as well as the fact that the ringleader, who was 13 at the time, had a diagnosis of high functioning autism and Asperger’s syndrome. She also took into consideration mental health factors, loss, neglect and abuse factorsand speech and language problems, which all three boys suffer from.