Boys’ sentences for 11 counts of rape ‘too lenient’
Three teenage boys who raped two girls in separate attacks were given “very lenient” sentences, a police chief said.
The attacks, which took place in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, in 2024 and 2025, were “brazenly filmed” on phones and showed children laughing and encouraging each other, prosecutors said.
Two of the children were 14 years old when they carried out their attacks.The third boy was 13 when he aided and abetted the attacks on the second girl. Among other sanctions, the boys were given Youth Rehabilitation Orders and walked out of court with 11 rape convictions between them.
Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Donna Jones said the sentences “offer little comfort to victims”.
Warning: This story contains details that some may find upsetting
Det Sgt Naomi Stocker, of Hampshire Police, praised the girls’ “tremendous bravery” and said: “We are liaising with our partners at the Crown Prosecution Service regarding the sentencing.”
Announcing the sentence at Southampton Crown Court, Judge Nicholas Rowland said: “I must avoid needlessly criminalizing these children, understand the impact of their behavior and support their reintegration into society.”
The judge emphasized the “seriousness” of the boys’ crimes and said filming the attacks made them even more “serious”.
He then emphasized their “very young” age and said, “There is no need for any of you to go to prison today.”
The mother of two children burst into tears as the sentence was read.
The two older children, now aged 15, were given three-year Youth Rehabilitation Orders (YROs) with 180 days of intensive supervision and supervision.
The third child, now 14, was given an 18-month YRO.
All three boys were given a three-month curfew and a 10-year restraining order preventing them from contacting their victims.
Speaking later, Jones said: “I am deeply concerned that these children think they can commit such horrific acts and post them online and not go to jail.
“Their punishment clearly reflects their focus on rehabilitation rather than criminalization. They are too lenient.”
The PCC added: “I will offer my support if victims and their families decide to appeal the sentences.”
The second girl was 14 when she was attacked at Fordingbridge Recreation Ground. [Crown Prosecution Service]
The victim of the first attack was 15 when she was raped three times in an underpass by the River Avon in Fordingbridge on what she thought was a first date.
She had traveled to meet one of the boys for the first time after starting a “relationship” with him on the social media platform Snapchat.
But then two more boys appeared.
During the trial the court heard he was “petrified”, felt “cornered and trapped” and feared being thrown into the river.
Prosecutors said the boys shared video of the attacks on social media, and as a result the woman received harassing messages.
During the sentencing hearing, the girl spoke anonymously from behind a screen and said: “No one deserves the trauma of being raped. I will never get that innocence back.”
He also wrote a poem directed at his attackers: “All I want to do is die. I no longer have fear of when that will come.”
The second girl was 14 when she met the boys at Fordingbridge Recreation Ground and was raped repeatedly in a nearby field.
Forensic evidence revealed that her tights had been cut with a “sharp instrument”.
In the video footage seen in court during the hearing, he was heard lying motionless on the ground with his “face buried in his hands” while another child was heard shouting words of encouragement.
In a statement read on his behalf just before sentencing, he spoke of suffering “flashbacks”.
“Sometimes I can still feel his hands on me,” he said in his statement.
She added: “I feel ashamed of my own body, insecure and uncomfortable. The person I was before is completely gone.”
Early in the hearing and following their statements, Judge Rowland spoke directly to the other young victim and told her: “The sentence I impose cannot undo what happened to you.
“I hope that when you look back, you can find at least some solace in thinking that you both showed great courage.”
Young people with misogynistic attitudes should be questioned, Senior Prosecutor Siobhan Blake says [BBC]
The perpetrators, who cannot be named because they are children, were found guilty of rape even in cases where they aided and abetted another child to commit the attack.
Their filming of the attacks also led to convictions for taking indecent photographs of children.
The court heard the two older boys involved in both attacks were held in youth custody for less than a month between their arrest and trial.
The Crown Prosecution Service has warned that rape and sexual assaults involving young people are “on the rise”.
Speaking before sentencing, senior prosecutor Siobhan Blake said: “We all have a real role to play as citizens to make sure we have really clear conversations with our young people about misogynistic attitudes and push back really hard.”
Jones added: “It is vital that young people are educated about sexual violence and misogynistic attitudes if we are to prevent such crimes from happening again.”
