UK judge’s decision not to jail boys for rape like a ‘rock straight in my face’, says victim, 16

A judge’s decision not to jail two teenage boys who raped two girls has been described by one of the victims as a “rock straight in my face”. A trial at Southampton crown court heard the girls were raped in two separate attacks in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, the first attack on 26 November 2024 and the second on 17 January 2025. The boys, aged 15, were given youth rehabilitation orders and made subject to intensive supervision and surveillance. Their sentences are to be reviewed by the attorney general. In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, one of the victims – who was 15 at the time of the incident – asked: “What was the point in putting me through that?” Speaking anonymously alongside her family, the girl, now 16, said the judge’s decision “almost made it seem as if what the boys did was not OK, but it was OK in the eyes of the law because they were still children”. Jodie Mittell KC, prosecuting, told the trial the girl had visited one of the defendants in November 2024 after meeting him on Snapchat. The prosecutor said that after performing sex acts on the boy, who was then 14, she became “scared and anxious” when the second defendant arrived, and the pair raped her while the incident was filmed. Mittell said that afterwards, videos of the incident had been sent around and other people had made jokes about her and she had received messages calling her a “slag”. …