A teenage rape victim in the UK criticizes a judge’s decision after three boys escaped prison.
A teenage rape victim has criticized a court’s decision to spare three boys from prison after they were found guilty of assaulting two girls in Hampshire, UK.The victim, now 16, spoke to the BBC after the defendants received youth rehabilitation orders in lieu of prison sentences at Southampton Crown Court.“What’s the point of putting me through that?” she said.The girl was 15 years old when she was raped in a tunnel near the River Avon in Fordingbridge in November 2024 after traveling to meet a boy following conversations on Snapchat.Two boys, now aged 15, were found guilty of assaulting and separately raping another teenage girl in January 2025. A third defendant, now aged 14, was also convicted for his role in the second attack.The court heard that the assaults were filmed on mobile phones, and some of the footage was later circulated online.The older two boys received three-year youth rehabilitation orders with intensive probation and monitoring requirements, while the youngest defendant received an 18-month prison order.During sentencing, Judge Nicholas Rowland said he wanted to avoid “criminalizing” the “very young” defendants, although he acknowledged the seriousness of the crimes and said filming the assaults made them “more serious”.
The judge also said peer pressure played a “major role” in the incidents.Reacting to the ruling, the victim said the decision felt like a “rock in my face.”“He made it seem as if what the boys did was not acceptable, but it was acceptable in the eyes of the law because they were still children,” she said.The teen also described the emotional stress of repeated assaults during court proceedings.“Why did I sit and put myself through the pain of going to court, going through a trial, getting everything back because of the evidence and watching it all happen again?” she said.She said she waited six months before reporting the attack because she struggled to deal with the trauma.“The reason I said that is because I was losing it. I was on the upswing. I needed help, but I didn’t know how to get it, so I spoke up,” she said.Her family also criticized the outcome of the ruling, describing the penalties as insufficient.The girl’s mother appealed to the authorities to reconsider the case and urged the government to intervene.“Please help,” she said.“If it were your daughter, your niece, your son, your nephew, or your family member, would you be happy?”Her partner said he felt “physically ill” after hearing the sentencing decision and claimed the perpetrators had “gotten away with it”.
