Three Teenage Boys In The UK Who Gang Raped Two Girls Were Given No Prison Sentence, Sparking Widespread Outrage
The judge said he wanted to avoid “criminalizing” the boys “unnecessarily” and support their reintegration into society.
Three teenage boys in the UK who gang raped two girls, filmed it and uploaded it online, were given no prison sentence, sparking widespread outrage.
The three boys, two aged 14 and one aged 13 at the time, gang raped two girls aged 15 and 14 in two separate incidents in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, in November 2024 and January 2025.
The first girl, who was 15, had travelled to meet one of the boys, whom she had known online through Snapchat, believing they were going on a date in November 2024.
She and the boy went into a public area and then to an underpass by the River Avon where the two other boys arrived and raped her.
The second girl was 14 when the same boys threatened her with violence using a knife and raped her in January 2025.
The attackers filmed the assaults and shared the footage with abusive messages about the victims on social media.
The second girl, now aged 15, reported the January attack to police, saying one of the attackers pushed her down and used a knife to cut her clothes before forcing himself on her, according to the BBC.
The footage showed her lying motionless on the ground with "her face buried in her hands."
Police also found forensic evidence, including damage to her trousers consistent with a sharp instrument.
During the investigation, police found the footage that the attackers shared online and identified the first 15-year-old girl from the November 2024 attack.
After a five-week trial, a court found the three boys guilty of a total of 10 counts of rape between the three of them, as well as taking indecent images of children.
During the court hearing, one girl, who spoke anonymously from behind a screen, wrote a poem directed towards her attackers, saying, "All I want to do is die. I no longer have fear for when that comes.”
The second girl said in a statement read on her behalf immediately before sentencing that she suffers "flashbacks" and can still feel “their hands” on her.
"I feel ashamed, insecure and uncomfortable in my own body. The person I was before has completely gone," she said.
On May 21, the judge, Nicholas Rowland, sentenced the boys to youth rehabilitation with not one day in prison, causing public outrage.
Youth rehabilitation orders are community-based sentences for young offenders, involving supervision, counselling and restrictions, rather than detention.
The two older boys received three-year youth rehabilitation orders with 180 days of intensive supervision while the younger boy received 18 months.
Rowland said he wanted to avoid “criminalizing” the boys “unnecessarily” and support their reintegration into society.
He said the boys were “very young” and had a “limited understanding of consent” and praised their behavior throughout the trial.
He then told the girls that he hopes they will take some comfort in the fact that both of them had shown great courage.
One girl said the judge’s decision felt like a rock in the face.
The other girl said the sentence made her feel like what the boys did “was OK in the eyes of the law because they were still children.”
"It sort of gave me a sense of what's the point... what was the point in putting me through that just to say that it's fine," the girl said.
The victims’ families condemned the decision, saying “the victims are the ones suffering and the perpetrators are the ones that have seemingly got away scot-free.”
Politicians, campaigners and police chiefs have all condemned the decision as an “appalling miscarriage of justice.”
UK prime minister Keir Starmer called the case “really distressing” and praised the courage of the victims.
After public outrage and criticism grew over the lenient sentences, the UK Attorney General referred the case to the Court of Appeal for review on May 28.
Appeal judges will now decide whether the boys' sentences should be increased.
Read More
Meg Chen
Kassy Cho
Kassy Cho
