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  "path": "/opinion/rape-case-uk-hampshire-sentence",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-27T11:13:15.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.gbnews.com",
  "tags": [
    "Membership"
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  "textContent": "\n\n\nNormally, I refrain from commenting on sentences handed down in court. I take the view that I have not had the information available to the judge and jury, and that there may be plenty of nuances of which I am unaware.\n\nI therefore avoid knee-jerk reactions as to whether a sentence is too severe or too light. Trial by media has no charms for me, nor has lynch mob justice.\n\nEvery so often, however, a sentence is so astonishing that it is impossible not to take a view, and that must certainly apply in the case of the three boys who raped two schoolgirls and filmed the incidents before circulating the results on social media.\n\nYes, they were young, two being 15 and one a mere 14, and yes, they were of low intelligence, but I doubt if any of them did not know that rape is wrong.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nThe victims were also young, and being forcibly violated is hardly something they are likely to forget. Yet the judge awarded non -custodial sentences, leaving the rest of the world clutching its head in disbelief.\n\nHe told the girls that no sentence he could pass would undo what had happened to them. True, but one that recognised the seriousness of the offences might have gone some way towards convincing them that the law cared and that it was worth going through the trauma of the trial.\n\nThen there is the issue of deterrence. This sentence sends out a terrible message about the seriousness or lack of it with which the law views rape. This was not a question of a man and a woman beginning consensually and then things going wrong.\n\nThree boys deliberately set out to force two girls. They gloatingly filmed the rapes and then shared the images. There were no mitigating circumstances. Are youngsters to believe that their youth will preserve them from punishment in such cases?\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nPredictably, we were told that the boys variously had ADHD and anxiety as if that could excuse rape.\n\nIndeed, it is arguable that they might have benefitted from custody as the 14-year-old would have been placed in a secure training centre specifically designed for the education and supervision of juveniles and the 15-year-olds in young offender institutions. They would not have been sent to adult jails.\n\nBobby Thompson, one of the killers of little James Bulger, reportedly told the parole board that it was only when he was sent to a secure children’s home that he encountered structure and normal supervision.\n\nObviously, I do not know the details of these boys’ home lives, but if the judge wanted to give them the best chance of successful rehabilitation, a spell in custody tailored to their ages might not have been any great disaster.\n\nInstead, the three boys were left free, although admittedly with intense supervision requirements.\n\nIt is difficult to see what incentive that provides to girls to come forward or what deterrent it provides to boys contemplating sexual assault.",
  "title": "When did rape at knifepoint become less serious than a tweet?"
}