Boys' sentences for rape to be reviewed in July

The sentences of three teenage boys who were spared custody over the rape of two girls will be reviewed at the Court of Appeal in July.

Two 15-year-olds were given non-custodial sentences after attacking the girls in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, by a judge who said he wanted to “avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily”.

A third boy, now aged 14, was also convicted at Southampton Crown Court for his involvement in the second attack and an indecent images offence.

Sir Keir Starmer previously announced that the “distressing” case would be referred to the Court of Appeal under the unduly lenient scheme.

The sentences will now be considered by senior judges at a two-day hearing starting on 1 July.

Discussing the referral, Attorney General Lord Hermer said there was “an epidemic of violence against women and girls in this country” and that the two girls “displayed immense bravery in coming forward”.

The full transcript of the judge’s sentencing remarks were made publicly available after the BBC requested they be transcribed.

They reveal the complex sentencing exercise, including submissions about the boys’ neurological impairments and their capacity to understand the impact that they had had on the victims.

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Nicholas Rowland said the offences committed by the two 15-year-olds “crossed the custody threshold”.

He also said guidelines for youth offenders state custody should be considered as a “last resort”, and he “must have regard to the objectives of youth justice being to prevent offending by children and the welfare of the child”.

He said: “I must consider the respective ages of the children at the time when these offences were committed.

“As was made clear in that decision, it is not just the chronological age I am concerned with, but emotional and developmental age.

“I need to consider the ages of these children… and proceed on the basis that custody is a last resort.”

The first 15-year-old defendant was handed a three-year youth rehabilitation order (YRO) with 180 days of intensive supervision and surveillance for the rape of each of the two girls, who were 14 and 15 at the time, and two indecent images charges.

The second 15-year-old was given the same sentence for three charges of rape against each of the two victims and four counts of taking indecent images in relation to filming of the incidents.

A third boy, who is 14 and was 13 at the time, was given a YRO for 18 months for two charges of rape in the second incident by encouraging the second defendant and an offence of indecent images.

Crown Prosecution Service

Warning: This story contains details some may find distressing

The victim of the first attack was 15 when she was raped three times in an underpass by the River Avon in Fordingbridge, during what she had thought was a first date.

She had travelled to meet one of the boys for the first time, after he had begun a “relationship” with her on social media platform Snapchat.

But then two other boys appeared – the second defendant, who was 14 at the time, and another boy, who is not the third defendant and was not involved in the trial.

The boys shared video of the attacks on social media, resulting in her receiving abusive messages, prosecutors said.

The second girl was 14 when she met the boys at Fordingbridge Recreation Ground, and was raped repeatedly in a nearby field.

Video footage seen in court during the trial showed her lying motionless on the ground with “her face buried in her hands”, while another boy was heard shouting words of encouragement.

In a statement read on her behalf immediately before sentencing, she described suffering “flashbacks”.

“Sometimes I can still feel their hands on me,” her statement said.

The perpetrators, who cannot be named because they are children, were convicted of rape even in circumstances where they aided and abetted another boy to carry out an attack.

Their filming of the assaults also led to convictions for taking indecent images of children.

The court heard the two older boys, who were involved in both attacks, had each served less than a month in youth detention between their arrests and trial.