![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/skynews-leicestershire-summer-camp_6979878.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA 76-year-old man has been charged with child cruelty offences after youngsters fell ill at a summer camp.<\/p>\n
Jonathon Ruben is accused of three offences of “wilful ill treatment” relating to three boys.<\/p>\n
Police received a report of children feeling unwell at a camp being held at Stathern Lodge, near Melton in Leicestershire, on Sunday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n A view of the scene on Thursday. Pic: PA <\/p>\n
Officers said paramedics attended the scene and eight boys – aged between eight and 11 – were taken to hospital as a precaution, as was an adult. They have since been discharged.<\/p>\n
Ruben is due to appear at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Saturday.<\/p>\n
A statement from Janine McKinney, chief crown prosecutor for CPS East Midlands, said: “The Crown Prosecution Service has authorised the prosecution of a 76-year-old man with child cruelty offences following a police investigation into a summer camp held at Stathern Lodge, Leicestershire.<\/p>\n
“This decision has been made after reviewing a file of evidence from Leicestershire Police.<\/p>\n
“Jonathon Ruben, will be charged with three offences of wilful ill-treatment of a child relating to three boys. He will appear at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Saturday, 1 August.<\/p>\n
“This has been an extremely upsetting and shocking moment for the community, and especially for the children and parents most directly affected.”<\/p>\n
Ruben was originally arrested on Monday evening at a pub on suspicion of administering poison or a noxious thing with intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy.<\/p>\n
More from Sky News: Leicestershire Police said the owners and operators of Stathern Lodge are separate from the people who use or hire the venue, and are not connected to the incident.<\/p>\n It added in a statement: “This is an active criminal investigation and we ask that people do not speculate further about the incident, particularly on social media platforms.<\/p>\n “Leicestershire Police continues to work closely with partners ensuring that full safeguarding is provided to all those affected.”<\/p>\n The force has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct over its handling of the incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 76-year-old man has been charged with child cruelty offences after youngsters fell ill at a summer camp.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-310659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114956501220618364","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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