Three teenage boys received youth rehabilitation orders and intensive supervision after raping two girls in separate attacks in Hampshire in 2024 and 2025. Prosecutors said the assaults were brazenly filmed on phones, with the boys laughing and encouraging, and that some footage was later shared online. Labour MP Jess Phillips condemned the non-custodial sentences as unduly lenient, saying they send a bad message to young women facing rape trials and may undermine justice. She said social media influenced the boys, describing the behavior as “raping for content” to post and gloat. Judge Nicholas Rowland said he would avoid criminalising them, stressing the seriousness of the crimes while noting their very young ages and that they would not go to prison.
"For those young women going through a rape trial like this will not have been a simple thing to do, it will have been many, many months if not years to achieve any sort of justice and I am afraid to say it sends a bad message."
"It seems unduly lenient to me and has wider public interest beyond just the case itself in the message that it sends. These young people it seems were essentially raping for content in order to put it on social media and share it to their friends gloating about raping these poor young women."
"Explaining his sentencing decision at Southampton Crown Court on Thursday, Judge Nicholas Rowland said he would avoid "criminalising" the boys, telling them: "None of you need to go to prison today." The judge stressed the "seriousness" of the crimes and said the filming of the assaults made them even "more serious". However, he emphasised their "very young" ages and told them they would not be facing prison time."
"Phillips said social media had negatively influenced young boys, saying that the three boys had been "raping for content" online. "It seems unduly lenient to me and has wider public interest beyond just the case itself in the message that it sends," she said."
#rape-sentencing #youth-rehabilitation-orders #intensive-supervision-and-surveillance #social-media-influence #criminal-justice
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