The Court of Appeal is set to rule on whether the sentences of three boys who were spared custody over the rape of two girls are “unduly lenient” on Thursday.
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”.
Lawyers for the boys told the hearing in London that the sentences were appropriate, with Y’s barrister claiming that the sentencing judge, Judge Nicholas Rowland, “applied the correct legal framework with conspicuous care”.
At the end of the hearing, the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, sitting with Lord Justice Edis and Ms Justice Norton, said that they hoped to hand down a judgment at 2pm on Thursday.
She said: “We have obviously got a great deal to consider.”
The boys, who did not attend the hearing, are expected to appear at the Court of Appeal via video link on Thursday to hear the judgment, with Baroness Carr saying that the judges “will want to address” them directly to explain their decision.
Sentencing the boys at Southampton Crown Court, 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.”
In written submissions, he said: “Had the judge properly assessed the seriousness of the offences, he could only reasonably have concluded that lengthy sentences of detention were required for both X and Y and that a sentence of detention was required for Z.”
In a statement to the Press Association ahead of the hearing, the victim of the first attack said it had “left me harmed so severely that I do not think I will ever be the same” and that the trial of her attackers “broke something inside me”.
Judge Rowland said at sentencing that although X and Y were assessed by Youth Justice Services as at “medium risk” of reoffending but “high risk of serious harm” to young females, he had to consider their backgrounds.
He said X had been diagnosed with ADHD and “long-standing anxiety” while Y had an IQ in the bottom 1%, had ADHD with “extreme neurodevelopmental impairment” and presented “more like an eight-year-old”.
Clare Wade KC, for X, said: “The sentences imposed broadly provide the best opportunity for the child offenders to learn and develop and provide the most effective way of protecting women and girls in future by preventing future offending.”
Edward Henry KC, for Y, said his client has a “constellation of comorbid conditions that dramatically reduced his culpability” and that the Attorney General had not established that Judge Rowland made a “gross error”.
He said that the sentence given to Y was a “rigorous, structured, rehabilitative programme”, adding it was “the best opportunity to ensure that this child, for all the defects that fate has vested upon him, becomes an adult who poses no risk to anyone”.
Mr Henry also said that his client “behaved deplorably and disgracefully and deserves to be punished”, but had been made a “pariah” in the wake of public outcry following his sentencing, which caused the boy “substantial additional punishment that he is ill-equipped to bear”.
Baroness Carr also expressed “deep concern” about a press release issued by the Crown Prosecution Service after the boys had been sentenced on May 21, which she said contained “fundamental errors”.
This included an incorrect claim that the second victim was raped at knifepoint, which Judge Rowland had expressly said he was sure did not happen.
Mr Little told the court that the press release was not corrected until June 10, which Baroness Carr said was “troubling” given the “very significant media reporting”, adding: “We are considering what our options are.”
