PRIME MINISTER Keir Starmer has described as “appalling” a case in which three teenage boys avoided custodial sentences after being convicted of raping two girls in Hampshire.
Two girls, aged 15 and 14 at the time, were raped in separate attacks in Fordingbridge in November 2024 and January 2025 by two 14-year-old boys. Another boy, then aged 13, was convicted over his involvement in the second attack.
At Southampton Crown Court on Thursday, Judge Nicholas Rowland sentenced the boys to Youth Rehabilitation Orders instead of custody, saying he wanted to “avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily”.
The boys filmed the rapes on their phones and later shared some footage online. One girl, now 16, told BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that the decision felt like a “rock straight in my face” and “a slap on the wrist”.
“Why did I sit and put myself through the pain of going to court, going through a trial, reliving everything because of evidence and watching it all happen again?” she said.
Responding on X, Starmer said: “The girls at the heart of this case have shown extraordinary bravery and strength in heinous circumstances.
“This is an appalling case and it is right that law officers are urgently reviewing the sentences.”
The attorney general has 28 days to decide whether to refer the case to the Court of Appeal. Cabinet minister Darren Jones said the review would be looked at “urgently”, BBC reported.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said she was “sickened” by the case, while Reform UK MP Robert Jenrick said justice had not been done.
