The youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sent into custody after he was convicted of farming £85,000 worth of cannabis in a house on Malton Road, Intake.

An appeal at Doncaster Crown Court in an attempt to free the boy has been adjourned.

His barrister Michael Upson made the application to adjourn the case.

Mr Upson told Judge Patrick Robertshaw: "There is information to suggest that he is a trafficked child, for want of a better phrase. There are guidelines for the bench to deal with trafficked children. The court may act to rectify a mistake where that person may have been a trafficking victim and had offended because they were suffering under coercion and the Crown Prosecution Service would look at whether it was in the public interest to prosecute him.

"There may be a possibility for him to withdraw his earlier guilty plea."

Doncaster Magistrates ' jailed the teenager for 12 months in a detention centre, earlier this month after pleading guilty to helping farm the drugs.

ECPAT UK, an organisation working to stop child trafficking, had taken up the boy's case and contacted MP Anthony Steen, who raised the issue in a parliamentary debate.

Mr Steen asked the Solicitor General why magistrates locked up the child when he "had clearly been trafficked, threatened with violence, kept prisoner and was desperately scared".

Solicitor General Vera Baird said child trafficking had only been mentioned in mitigation and had the Crown Prosecution Service been aware of the allegations they would probably not have prosecuted the boy.


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