A 14-year-old boy was arrested late last week after he used a smartphone game to lure his 3-year-old neighbour away in order to allegedly rape her in Takeo’s Prey Kabbas district, police said yesterday.

Takeo Provincial Court spokesman Phan Sopheak said the teenager was charged on Friday afternoon and sent to pre-trial detention the following day. “He was charged with rape, but the judge will decide during the hearing whether to include rape with aggravating circumstances. As he is under 18, he may get a sentence reduction, but that will be decided by the court,” he said.

Chum Chhoeun, chief of Prey Kabbas district police, said the perpetrator confessed to raping the victim twice – although the girl said the abuse occurred five times – on Thursday afternoon in a neighbour’s manger.

“The suspect had a mobile phone and he played a kind of fruit game. The girl wanted to see the game and followed him,” Chhoeun said. “After the first rape, the girl followed him again, wanting to see the game. Then the suspect raped her the second time . . . Before they separated, the boy said ‘if you tell others, I will beat you’.”

Police were notified after the girl’s aunt and uncle – with whom she lives – noticed she was wounded.