A ten-year-old boy repeatedly raped and sexually abused a seven-year-old girl over two years after becoming addicted to hardcore pornography, a court has heard.

The schoolboy would sit at his home computer for hours scouring the internet for extreme porn, the court was told.

After looking at the vile images he would play out his sexual fantasies on the young girl – which later developed into attempted rape and rape.

The court heard how he committed sex acts on the girl between the age of ten and 12 when she was aged only seven and eight.

Yesterday the boy, now 13, escaped a custodial sentence after a judge heard how he had been physically and emotionally abused as a young child.

The court was told the boy was brought up in a home that lacked any ‘sexual boundaries’ and may well have witnessed his mother having sex.

His mother was also aware that he was spending hours a day looking at  indecent images on the internet but did nothing to stop it, the court heard.

The case comes just days after calls for more restrictions to online pornography following Google and Microsoft’s announcement they would block internet search results linked to images of child abuse.

The Daily Mail’s fight to force the web industry to clean up the internet through its Block Online Porn campaign has led to concerted pressure on service providers, such as BT and TalkTalk.

Now all 20million families in the UK who have an internet connection will be forced to say whether they want access to online pornography. Hundreds of thousands are already signing up to have it blocked.

Mold Crown Court was told the schoolboy began accessing hardcore images on a computer from the age of nine. Referring to the victim, Judge Niclas Parry told the boy: ‘In fact what you were doing was using her to play out fantasies that you had been watching on the internet, images of extreme pornography.’

Judge Parry said the boy had suffered an appalling early childhood and had been subjected to physical and emotional abuse.

He said the boy’s mother chose to ‘ignore that you were accessing for hours a day images of a pornographic nature on the internet’.

The court was told there was clear evidence of very poor parenting on behalf of his mother, which bordered on deliberate neglect.

Reports showed this neglect had gone on for around seven years, during which time he had also been abused by his mother’s partner.

And the court heard that the boy’s home environment lacked any barriers to the adult world.

The judge said: ‘You may have witnessed your mother and her partner engaged in sexual activity. You were brought up in a home that lacked any sexual boundaries.’

The court heard the boy, who sat in court with social workers and employees of a children’s development centre where he is now living, was left without support or guidance.

Elen Owen, defending, described the case as ‘extremely sad’. Reports suggested the assaults and rapes were a way of satisfying the boy’s emotional needs rather than for sexual gratification alone.  Judge Parry said the boy could have been detained in custody because the crimes were so serious but said he wanted him to be rehabilitated rather than harmed further.

The boy, who admitted committing rape, attempted rape and sexual assault, was placed on a three-year youth rehabilitation order with supervision, as well as a residency order so that he remains at the specialist centre where he is living.

The teenager, from Llandudno, North Wales, was also ordered to register with the police as a sex offender. The court heard he was seeking therapy to overcome his addiction.

The judge said work to counsel the young girl, who is also in care, was under way but that it may take years for her to understand that what happened to her was not normal.