Police have arrested two 10-year-old boys after an eight-year-old girl complained they raped her in a West London suburb.
The schoolgirl told her mother that she was playing with the boys, who are her friends, in a playground in Hayes when the alleged attack happened during half-term school holidays.
Her horrified parents alerted police after the alleged assault, which is reported to have taken place Oct 27 in broad daylight and witnessed by her six-year-old sister.
The boys, who are said to be best friends, were questioned about the incident before being bailed to return to a West London police station next month.
David Yarrow, the deputy mayor of the local Hillingdon Council, told the Daily Mail: “I have never heard of two 10-year-olds being accused of raping an eight-year-old girl. It's just totally shocking.
“It's like the James Bulger case, you can't believe children of that age would be capable of something like that.”
Bulger, a two-year-old toddler, was abducted and killed by two 10-year-old boys in the city of Liverpool in February 1993.
As 10-year-olds, the two boys are just over the age of criminal responsibility.
Last month, two boys aged 10 and 12 admitted luring two other boys to a secluded patch of ground in Edington, northern England, and subjecting them to a horrifying ordeal which left one of them fighting for their lives.