In one case, a boy avoided prison after he was found guilty of three attacks, including a #rape .

There was public anger over a case in southern England last week in which three teenage boys were given youth rehabilitation orders after two were convicted of rape and one was convicted of involvement in the attacks. The victims were two girls aged 15 and 14, who were attacked in separate incidents in #Fordingbridge #Hampshire.

Those sentences have been referred to the court of appeal by the attorney general, the government’s top law officer, for being unduly lenient. Keir Starmer described the case as “appalling”.

Youth courts are normally closed to the public. But specialist advisers to the young girls in the three newly revealed cases were so appalled by the sentences that they decided to expose the punishments being passed in youth courts for serious sexual offences.

"This is an appalling case and it is right that law officers are urgently reviewing the sentences."

Warning: This story contains details some may find distressing

The teenager was 15 when she was raped in an underpass by the River Avon in #Fordingbridge , #Hampshire.
She had travelled to meet one of the boys for the first time in November 2024 after he had begun a "relationship" with her on social media platform #Snapchat.
The two defendants, who are now 15, were also convicted of attacking a second victim, who was raped in a field in January 2025. Another boy, now 14, was also convicted for his involvement in the second attack.
The boys filmed the rapes on their phones and later shared some of the footage online.

At the sentencing hearing at #SouthamptonCrownCourt, the judge stressed the "seriousness" of the crimes and said the filming of the assaults made them even "more serious".