A BOY obsessed with pornography who took part in the humiliating rape of a schoolgirl was today locked up for three years.

The teenager spent hours every day looking at internet sites before he and a friend subjected the girl to a terrifying attack.

A court heard how the victim was bound and gagged and shoved into a cupboard, tied to a chair and threatened with knives.

She had plastic bags put over her head and a scarf tightened around her neck during the ordeal at a house in Hartlepool.

Teesside Crown Court heard that she had her trousers and shoes stripped and was slapped before being raped in a bedroom.

Her attackers – aged 14 and 15 at the time - laughed as she was pulled down the stairs and banged her head against a wall.

Sarah Mallett, prosecuting, said the 14-year-old victim tried to flee through a window and is still traumatised by her ordeal.

She was left with a black eye and covered in bruises to her chest, wrists and legs after being beaten and pinned down.

The frantic girl had to bite through the plastic bag as she struggled for breath, Miss Mallett told the court today.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton jailed the older boy for three years, after hearing he was led by the more forceful younger lad.

The younger boy was dealt with in November for his part in the attack last April, and was locked up for four years.

Judge Bourne-Arton said today: "You had for many months, spent many days trawling through internet pornography.

"Your interest in sexual matters was heightened and heightened, unfulfilled, and you wanted to experiment.

"Weak-willed you may be and weak-minded you may be, but you knew everything that you did to her. You may have been led, but you were led willingly.

"What it was you were led into terrified her. She wanted to go home, but you would not let her, not until your lust had been satisfied.

"The words rape and false imprisonment are almost inadequate to describe that which you did and how horrifying an ordeal it was to put her through."

Defence barrister, Paul Cleasby, admitted the crimes were "abhorrent" but said his client was "a follower, not a leader".

Both boys - neither of whom can be named because of their age - admitted charges of rape and false imprisonment at earlier court hearings.

At one of those hearings, Judge Bourne-Arton described the attack as “heinous” and told the lads: “What you did over a significant period was to humiliate and degenerate her.”

The younger boy's barrister said he may have been experimenting, but the judge rejected that, and said: “The elements of abduction and violence take it way beyond that.”

The teenagers locked the girl in the house before she was dragged about by the hair, shoved over and tied up with a washing line, the court was told.

She was rugby-tackled to the floor and had keys, teddy bears and pillows thrown at her while her mobile phone was turned off so she could not seek help.

Miss Mallett called it a “degrading and humiliating” attack, and the younger lad's barrister, Nathan Rasiah, admitted it was “undoubtedly serious”.

The judge told the pair: "The effect upon her can only be imagined. You have damaged her emotionally and psychologically.

“She may never yet recover the confidence she once had. At the time she should be enjoying herself like any other teenager, she cannot now face being in the company of other people.”

He added: "What you did to that girl, and the full horror of what you did, only she can truly know."

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