A HUDDERSFIELD teenager has admitted a series of sex charges relating to six girls aged between 12 and 15.

And the plea meant his victims have been spared the ordeal of giving evidence to a court.

Lawyers and the police agreed to accept the boy’s pleas and not to press ahead with a prosecution on four rape charges involving the girls.

The Dalton boy, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had been due to stand trial at Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

But his guilty pleas to six allegations of sexual activity with girls under 16 were accepted by the prosecution.

The 16-year-old, who was himself aged 14 and 15 at the time of the offences, entered not guilty pleas to four alternative allegations of rape and one of attempted rape.

The boy’s mother sat in the dock with him during yesterday’s proceedings and heard Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC tell the teenager that he took an exceptionally serious view of his case.

But he told the youngster that his guilty pleas had gone a long way towards sparing the victims, who also cannot be identified, from further trauma.

The court heard that an aggravating feature of the case was the fact that threats had been made to the victims to prevent them from reporting incidents.

The offences all took place between June 2008 and December last year.

Prosecutor Matthew Bean told Judge Durham Hall that the guilty pleas had been accepted following a lengthy conference involving police officers and the reviewing lawyer.

He indicated that the ordeal facing the girls of giving evidence in court had been one of the primary considerations in the decision.

Mr Bean said the families of all the complainants had been spoken to briefly and the position explained to them.

“Letters are being sent out to all the families today and meetings being offered to each of the families,” added Mr Bean.

He said the reviewing lawyer had agreed to meet with the families to ensure they were kept fully in the picture.

Judge Durham Hall adjourned the teenager’s sentence until August 20 to allow time for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.

The boy was remanded back into custody to await his sentence.