Teenage boys put behind bars after sentences ruled unduly lenient in Fordingbridge rape case

Two teenage boys were sentenced to four years in juvenile detention for raping young girls and filming sexual assaults after their sentences were ruled to be excessively lenient.

Non-custodial sentences handed down for outrageous attacks in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, were not harsh enough, judges ruled.

The boys, both 15, received four fines The case remained in the young offenders’ institute for years after it was referred to the Court of Appeal by Lord Attorney-General Lord Hermer.

The families of the two raped girls said in a statement that they were “deeply grateful” and “relieved” by the sentences being considered.

A panel of judges led by Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr overturned two boys’ previous sentences of a three-year youth rehabilitation order (YRO) with 180 days of intensive supervision for rape and filming the abuse.

Addressing the teenagers on Thursday, Baroness Carr said: “We have decided that we need to vary your sentences and you should both be remanded into custody.”

He added: “What you did is so bad we have no choice.”

Judges upheld the sentence of a third boy, known as Z, aged 14, who received an 18-month YRO for encouraging the rape of the second victim. Addressing Z, Baroness Carr said: “We decided that because you are so young and find it so difficult to really understand things, and because you have only been involved once, we do not need to change your sentence.”

The children attended the hearing via video link from Southampton Crown Court to hear the new sentences handed down.

Baroness Carr said sentencing judge Judge Nicholas Rowland faced a “tough sentencing challenge” but said prison sentences for X and Y were “inevitable”. He added that the panel found that he “failed to take adequate account of the ages and vulnerabilities of the complainants”, which he described as “severe”.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Solicitor General Tom Little KC argued that for legal reasons the “only appropriate sentence” for the three boys, known as X, Y and Z, was detention.

He acknowledged that Judge Nicholas Rowland, who sentenced the boys at Southampton Crown Court in May, had overseen a harsh sentencing of child offenders. But he argued that the assessment of harm and guilt was “fundamentally flawed”.

He continued: “The judge failed to stand back and properly consider and reflect the true seriousness of the case because he did not view it as serious as it was.”

Mr Little also accused the judge of taking a “significantly outdated” approach. The lawyer said the judge correctly said that prior consensual sexual activity with the victims was not a mitigating factor, but incorrectly concluded that the offenders had reduced the crime.

Mr Little continued: “They were still convicted of rape by a jury, including a jury who were satisfied that consent had not been given and that they had no reasonable belief in consent.

“This appears to represent a significantly outdated approach to judicial sentencing of sexual offences.”

In his sentencing speech, Judge Rowland said the second defendant, known as Y, had ADHD with an IQ in the bottom 1 per cent and could not cope with ordinary schooling. His mother compared him more to an eight-year-old child.

Judge Rowland said he was “fairly confident” Y’s culpability was diminished “by virtue of his profound disabilities”.

The sentencing judge noted that the third and youngest boy, Z, was also found by a psychologist to have “very low intellectual capacity.”

But Mr Little said the sentences given to

Clare Wade KC, for X, argued that a youth rehabilitation order provided “the most effective way to protect women and girls by preventing future offending”.

He said he had already served the equivalent of 18 months under curfew while awaiting trial, adding: “He will be vulnerable in custody; he will be detained with criminal colleagues and will come under the influence of much more established criminals.”

Edward Henry KC, on behalf of boy Y, said the teenager, who was 14 at the time of the attacks, was declared a “pariah” due to media attention to the case and his family were advised to move out.

He told the court the public had been “massively misinformed” due to an error in the Crown Prosecution Service’s press release on the case, which incorrectly claimed that one of the attacks had taken place at knifepoint.

“Y behaved very deplorably and shamefully and of course deserves to be punished,” he said. “But the public outcry, the scorn, and the sheer force of hate on social media and the like has severely aggravated his sentence since May 22.”

For child Z, who was 13 at the time of the crime, Tracy Ayling KC argued that custody should be a “last resort”. He said he was too afraid to leave home after the false CPS press release was published.

The family of one of the victims, who used the pseudonym Jazmine to remain anonymous, said they were “forced to appear before one of the highest courts in the land to seek due recognition of the seriousness of Jazmine’s rape by two young boys.”

“Today’s hearing is about much more than the Jazmine case,” they added in a statement before the hearing. “This is about every survivor watching to see how the criminal justice system responds to the devastating harm that comes from rape.”

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