WHEN 15-year-old boys are given non-custodial sentences for rape, we should all be shocked.
But to those of us who campaign against the appalling way our criminal justice system treats women and girls who have been subjected to male violence, it is unsurprising.
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Shock over 15-year-old boys receiving non-custodial sentences for rape in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, highlights long-standing concerns about how the justice system treats cases of male violence against women and girls Credit: Alamy
Jess Phillips claimed in her resignation letter that Keir Starmer was offered a chance to tackle violence against women and girls but chose not to act Credit: Shutterstock Editorial
The attacks, which took place in November 2024 and January 2025 in the town of Fordingbridge, Hampshire, were “brazenly filmed” on phones and show the boys laughing and egging each other on.
The porn industry has played a huge role here — not just in teaching boys to rape and otherwise harm girls, but also by offering incentives to upload actual footage of the attacks.
A few years ago, I interviewed Rose Kalemba, whose rape at age 14 was uploaded to Pornhub. Seeing the footage trending left her “devastated and degraded.” The site ignored her for years until a lawyer threatened legal action.
This industry’s annual revenue dwarfs that of Hollywood — it generates ten times as much money.
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In her resignation letter, MP Jess Phillips, who quit as the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls earlier this month, revealed that PM Keir Starmer was offered an opportunity to tackle this huge social problem but chose not to.
Phillips had presented solutions that “would end the ability for children in the UK to take naked images of themselves. Ninety-one per cent of online child abuse is self-generated by children groomed, tricked and exploited into abuse.”
Yet as Phillips exposed, Starmer refused to act.
There are genuine concerns about the criminalisation of young people, but surely these circumstances warrant prison.
Instead, Judge Nicholas Rowland handed the two older boys three-year youth rehabilitation orders with intensive surveillance, and gave a third younger accomplice an 18-month order.
Explaining his decision, the judge insisted he should “avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily” and focus on their “reintegration into society”.
Boys and men do not need to be ‘intelligent’ to know not to perpetrate gang rape and share videos of it. ADHD is no defence — and nor is any other kind of vulnerability.
Yet the court chose to place a clear focus on rehabilitation over punishment, with the judge explicitly highlighting the defendants’ “very young” ages, “low intellectual capacity”, and ADHD diagnoses as mitigation.
As a lifelong campaigner against rape and sexual assault, I’ve begun to wonder whether it would make any difference at all if rape were decriminalised.
Less than three per cent of cases reported to police result in a conviction, and even then, there is the issue of sentencing and undue leniency.
On paper, rape is the second most serious crime on our statute books.
The court heard the devastating reality of this trauma first-hand. One victim, who was 15, revealed she “wanted to die” after receiving messages calling her a “slag” when the footage was circulated online.
Keir Starmer has been accused of failing to act on violence against women Credit: Getty
Attorney-General Richard Hermer faces scrutiny over whether he will refer a case for sentencing review, amid claims it reflects Labour’s failure to tackle sexual violence Credit: Alamy
The second victim, who was just 14 when she was attacked in a field, told the court: “There are days where I feel emotionally numb and detached.”
Yet from police response through to court, victims are betrayed time and time again.
The stigma remains firmly on the victims, so it’s already difficult enough for a rape victim — especially a child — to report this crime at all.
And much of society, including jurors and judges, will make any excuse for the actions of the perpetrators.
During rape trials, I’ve heard people say the men in the dock couldn’t possibly be guilty because they were either too handsome (therefore wouldn’t ‘need’ to rape), or that a conviction would be terrible because his life would be ruined.
The girls in this case have been extremely brave, and we owe them a debt of gratitude.
But the court has thrown their courage back in their faces. Speaking out after the verdict, one of the victims described the emotional toll of the sentence, stating: “The words hit like a rock straight in my face.
“He [the judge] 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.”
She then asked the ultimate damning question of our justice system: “What was the point in putting me through that?”
It is only in cases of sexual violence against girls and women that this attitude of perpetrator-compassion prevails.
Look at the grooming gang scandal, and how badly let down most victims were.
Very few of the perpetrators were tried and convicted — the majority are still walking our streets.
The word ‘grooming’ doesn’t do justice to the reality of the daily lives of the girls trapped in the clutches of these gangs.
They were raped, sometimes every day, by multiple men, and the trauma they carry as adult women (which I have witnessed first-hand) is painful to see.
These girls have been told, loud and clear, that the boys’ lives matter more than theirs.
The message sent out by this case is: if you rape, a set of ready-made excuses is lined up for you, so you’ll be able to get on with your life unimpeded.
How can rape be a serious crime, when — even if you are in the tiny minority of men or boys who get caught — you are very likely to get away with it?
If Richard Hermer, the attorney-general and long-time friend of Starmer, declines to refer the case to the Court of Appeal for a sentencing review, this would be yet another indication of Labour’s failure to tackle sexual violence.
Following a massive public outcry and a direct plea from a victim’s mother, the attorney-general’s office is reviewing the sentences under the unduly lenient scheme.
Labour insist they inherited a failing criminal justice system from the Tories, but our current, lawyer-led government has done nothing to improve it.
In 2024, Starmer pledged to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.
Yet under his leadership, rape has been all but decriminalised.
