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A 10-year-old boy will have to undergo another psychological assessment before he can be sentenced for sexually penetrating an eight-year-old boy.
The offender, who is a student at a northern suburbs primary school, previously pleaded guilty to sexual penetration of a child and threatening to kill.
The incident is alleged to have happened at knifepoint at a local park and the boy was charged last December.
The Perth Children's Court was told sentencing could not go ahead because a psychological report provided to the court raised questions as to whether the boy understood the court process.
The boy's lawyer, Neville Barber, told the court his client was "well aware of what he ought not have done".
The magistrate said the sooner the matter was resolved the better but she needed more information before she could consider sentencing.
One of the boy's bail conditions requires him to attend school, but he is supervised during recess and lunch.
The victim does not attend the same school.
Parents at the school met to express their concern that they were not told about the charges the boy faced.
Director-general of education Sharyn O'Neill told ABC Radio Perth she could not talk specifically about the case but she said in general, the law prevented anyone from identifying juvenile offenders.
"It is illegal to provide information or publish information that identifies a juvenile or could lead to the identification of a juvenile," she said.
"It puts me in a very difficult position obviously.
"No parent that I know sends their child, prepares them for school ... and then expects them to be rubbing shoulders with children who have perhaps committed serious crimes.
"The bail conditions are set by the court. They do their comprehensive risk assessment ... and then as an education department we comply with those bail conditions."
Ms O'Neill said the department was doing everything they could to ensure the safety of students.
"I'm not going to talk about that school ... but in general terms ... the sorts of strategies that we put in place are constant supervision ... sometimes we put on additional staff to be able to do that during recess, during lunch, sometimes we change the timetable of the student," she said.
"It's quite a distinct supervision and limitation around their movement such that we can provide that safety.
"It's a very difficult situation, it's not ideal and I think people are doing their utmost, but I can understand parents' concern, who wouldn't be?"
The boy is due back in court on March 15.
Topics: primary-schools, sexual-offences, children, perth-6000, wa
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