Overview
- On Tuesday Attorney General Lord Richard Hermer formally sent the sentences handed at Southampton Crown Court to the Court of Appeal for consideration under the Unduly Lenient Scheme.
- Two 15-year-old boys were convicted of raping two schoolgirls in separate Fordingbridge attacks and given three-year youth rehabilitation orders with 180 days of intensive supervision, while a third boy received an 18-month YRO.
- Prosecutors said the assaults in November 2024 and January 2025 were filmed on phones, footage was circulated and victims later received abusive messages, charges that included taking indecent images.
- Judge Nicholas Rowland justified non-custodial sentences by citing the boys' youth, low cognitive ability and peer pressure and saying he wanted to avoid unnecessarily criminalising them.
- The Court of Appeal will decide whether the sentences were unduly lenient and may increase them, a decision that will shape debates over how courts balance rehabilitation for children with accountability in serious sexual offences.