The sentences of two teenage boys who were spared jail for rape are being sent to the Court of Appeal after a review under the unduly lenient scheme, Sir Keir Starmer has announced.
The Prime Minister described the case as ‘distressing’ and praised the ‘courage’ of the victims who came forward.
Two girls were raped in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, by two 15-year-olds who avoided prison thanks to a judge at Southampton Crown Court, who said he wanted to ‘avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily’.
Asked about the outcome during a visit to East Sussex on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said Attorney General Lord Richard Hermer had examined the case and was referring it to the Court of Appeal for review.
‘I think it’s distressing for everybody to see, to hear about,’ he said. There are questions about the sentence.
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‘The Attorney General has the power to refer a case to the Court of Appeal if the Attorney General thinks that the sentence is too lenient.’
One of the young victims told BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg that the decision to spare her attackers from prison was like a ‘rock straight in her face’.
The trial at Southampton Crown Court heard the victims were raped in two separate incidents in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, with the first attack taking place on November 26, 2024 and the second on January 17, 2025.
Jodie Mittel KC, prosecuting, told the trial that the first victim had visited one of the defendants in November 2024 after meeting him on Snapchat.
The prosecutor said that after performing sex acts on the boy, who was then 14, she became ‘scared and anxious’ when the second defendant arrived, and the pair raped her while the incident was filmed.
Ms Mittel said that afterwards, videos of the incident had been sent around and other people made jokes about her, and she received messages calling her a ‘sl*g.’
The complainant in the January incident, who was 14 at the time, was raped in a field near Fordingbridge recreation ground, also while being filmed.
In the sentencing hearing on Thursday, a 15-year-old boy was handed a three-year YRO with 180 days of ISS for the rape of each of the two girls and two indecent images charges.
The court heard he had been diagnosed with ADHD as well as ‘long-standing anxiety.’
A 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.
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