UK teen rapists get detention after outrage at lenient sentences
Two British teenagers convicted of rape must serve time in custody, an appeal judge ruled on Thursday, after a public outcry over a judge’s decision to spare them detention.
Lower court judge Nicholas Rowland in May sentenced the two 15-year-old boys to three-year youth rehabilitation orders, saying he wanted to “avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily”.
However, the sentences provoked a severe backlash, prompting Attorney General Richard Hermer – the government’s chief legal adviser – to refer them to the Court of Appeal in London as potentially “unduly lenient”.
The teenagers raped two girls, aged 14 and 15, in separate incidents in November 2024 and January 2025 in Hampshire in southern England. Video footage of the attacks were shared online.
Quashing the sentences, Judge Sue Carr told the pair, who cannot be named due to their age, they both needed “to go into detention” and sentenced them to four years’ youth detention.
The original sentences were devastating for the family and left us feeling that the harm caused to our daughter had not been fully recognised
“What you did was so bad that we have no other choice,” she said, addressing them by video link.