Teenagers spared jail for raping of girls have sentences reviewed. What happens next?

Teenagers spared jail for raping of girls have sentences reviewed. What happens next? What is the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme and how does it work? - Bookmark Three teenage boys who were spared jail for the rape of two girls are to have their sentences reviewed on Wednesday as the Court of Appeal decides whether they were “unduly lenient”. Two 15-year-olds were given non-custodial sentences after raping the two girls in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, with a 14-year-old boy convicted for his involvement in the second attack and an indecent image offence also spared custody. A judge at Southampton Crown Court said at their sentencing hearing he wanted to “avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily” and that “peer pressure played a large part in what went on”. But the sentences were referred to the Court of Appeal days later under the Unduly Lenient Sentence (ULS) scheme, with Attorney General Lord Hermer saying there was “an epidemic of violence against women and girls in this country” and the Prime Minister describing the case as “distressing”. The sentences are due to be reviewed at a hearing beginning at 10.30am on Wednesday before Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, Lord Justice Edis and Ms Justice Norton at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. How the scheme works and the options available to judges in these cases – What is the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme? The ULS scheme allows sentences to be referred to the Court of Appeal if Government law officers consider them potentially “unduly lenient”. Under the scheme, any person or institution can ask for most sentences handed down in a crown court to be reviewed, including those for murder, manslaughter, rape, stalking and most child sexual offences. In April, the time victims of crime or their families have to request a sentence be reviewed was increased from 28 days to six months. Other members of the public or institutions still have 28 days to refer a case for consideration. The Attorney General or the Solicitor General, Ellie Reeves, then has 28 days – or 42 days if the request was submitted up to two weeks before the time limit – to consider the sentence and, if deemed necessary, refer the case to the Court of Appeal. – What happens at the Court of Appeal? The test for whether a case is referred is high. The sentence can be deemed “unduly lenient” only if it falls outside the range of sentences considered reasonably appropriate for the sentencing judge to hand down, based on the facts and evidence of the case. Usually, three appeal judges will hear the case. The judges cannot examine or change the offences for which the defendant was sentenced and cannot look at any new evidence related to the case. They can only assess whether the sentence was unduly lenient based on the evidence before the sentencing judge at the time. If the sentence is deemed unduly lenient, the original sentence is quashed, and a new sentence is substituted. – What were the original sentences? At a hearing on May 21, Judge Nicholas Rowland handed one of the 15-year-olds a three-year youth rehabilitation order (YRO) with 180 days of intensive supervision and surveillance for the rape of each of the two girls, who were aged 14 and 15 at the time, and two indecent images charges. The second 15-year-old, who was described as having an IQ in the “bottom 1% of his contemporaries”, 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. Both were aged 14 at the time of the attacks, which occurred in November 2024 and January 2025. A third boy, who is 14 and was 13 at the time, was given a YRO for 18 months for two charges of rape in the second incident by encouraging the second defendant and an indecent image offence. He was described as having “mild cognitive impairment”.