Court of Appeal rules Fordingbridge rape sentences unduly lenient
Three teenage boys avoided custodial sentences after they were convicted of raping two teenage girls in Fordingbridge
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The Court of Appeal has ruled community sentences given to two teenage boys after they raped two girls in Fordingbridge were unduly lenient, and has changed their sentences.
Two boys aged 15, known as X and Y, and another aged 14, known as Z, were given non-custodial sentences in May for a combined 10 counts of rape and seven indecent image offences related to two victims, who were separately attacked in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, in November 2024 and January 2025.
The two older boys were involved in both attacks, while the 14-year-old encouraged the rape of the second victim.
The Attorney General referred the sentences to the Court of Appeal as “unduly lenient” days later, with barristers telling a hearing on Wednesday that detention was the “only appropriate sentence”.
The two older boys, X and Y, will serve four years in prison.
Delivering her judgement at the Court of Appeal to the boys, who appeared via video link, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, said: "What you both did was so bad that we decided we had no other choice but to make these sentences."
The sentence of the third teenager, referred to as Z in court, will remain the same, the court has ruled.
Initial decision was 'fundamentally flawed'
Sentencing the boys at Southampton Crown Court in May, Judge Rowland said that X and Y’s offences “crossed the custody threshold”, but he should “avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily” and added that detention was a “last resort”.
X was given a three-year youth rehabilitation order (YRO) with 180 days of intensive supervision and surveillance for raping and taking indecent images of both victims.
Y received the same sentence for three charges of rape against each of the two victims and four counts of taking indecent images by filming the incidents.
Z was given an 18-month YRO for two charges of rape related to the latter victim after encouraging the second defendant, and for an offence of indecent images.
Tom Little KC, for the Attorney General, said on Wednesday that parts of Judge Rowland’s approach to sentencing were “fundamentally flawed” and “appear to minimise aspects of the case”, including the harm caused to the victims.
Mr Little said each victim and the evidence of the “extensive harm” they had suffered was given only a line-and-a-half in part of the judge’s sentencing remarks.
He continued: “It is submitted that is symptomatic of an approach which was, regrettably, incomplete and inadequate by the judge.”
He added: “It is difficult to understand how the judge could properly have come to the conclusion that he did, given the sheer number of rape offences, which the judge does not properly address in any way in… his sentencing remarks, the underlying seriousness of the offending and the harm sustained.”