PROSECUTORS have been accused of siding with a paedophile who lured a boy of six into woods by dropping an attempted kidnapping charge against him.
Jayden Smith, 19, pleaded guilty to child sex offences but evaded a much longer prison sentence when Crown Prosecution Service lawyers abandoned the more serious case.
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The pervert was caught on doorbell cameras as he stalked his young victim near his home.
He followed him into the woods, where he asked him to strip naked.
But the CPS abandoned an attempted abduction charge because the boy gave a slightly different account of what happened under questioning from Smith’s lawyers.
The lad’s mum says she feels let down and Smith, jailed for two years and nine months, would have been locked up for much longer.
She told The Sun: “I feel as if they have sided with the paedophile over his victim. I am so angry.
“I have no doubt Smith will do this to children again and again.”
Her son was targeted as he played on his bike in the streets yards from his home in Hampshire in July.
Smith was arrested hours later.
Ten minutes of doorbell camera footage showed him stalking the child in his car.
At one point, the boy, wearing a blue polo shirt and shorts, stops on his tiny bike as Smith, in a silver Volkswagen, pulls up alongside him.
Another clip, taken three minutes later, shows him following the boy as he rides his bike along the road.
More footage from another camera shows him walking after the boy into the woods under the guise of asking for directions.
There, he asked the boy to undress and allegedly performed a sex act on himself.
Minutes later, Smith chases the child as he runs away, before getting back in his car and driving off.
Two days into his trial in February he admitted causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity and two unrelated counts of sexual communications.
But the more serious charge of attempted kidnapping with the intent to commit a sexual offence was dropped.
Earlier this month, Smith was jailed at Southampton crown court — but the case has left the boy traumatised and his mother so upset she needs medication to sleep.
She said: “It could have halved the time he will spend in prison.
“My entire family have been let down and we will never get over it.
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“The police told us, ‘People can lie, but cameras can’t’. What happened to my son is on camera.
“It’s sickening. He will be out of prison in a year and a half. What if this happens again?”
In a letter from the CPS, she was told the charges were altered because of “evidential difficulties”.
The mum said her son was overwhelmed during cross-examination.
She added that she was asked about accepting the scaled-back charges but claimed she did not understand the attempted kidnapping case would be abandoned.
Sex offence lawyer Marcus Johnstone, of PCD Solicitors, told The Sun: “To drop it so suddenly, after being told he would plead guilty to something else, makes a mockery of the criminal justice system.
“It happens all the time. Smith will be in prison for a ridiculously short amount of time.”
Last night, a Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: “We looked carefully at the evidence against Smith and secured his conviction.”
Sources within the CPS insisted it did not do plea deals.