As many will have seen, the case in Hampshire involving two teenage girls and the brutal rapes committed by three teenage boys has shocked the country. The attacks were harrowing and included repeated rape, threats with a knife, the assaults filmed on the boys’ phones, the victims taunted, and the footage shared online. These girls will carry the consequences of that ordeal for the rest of their lives.
Given the gravity and cruelty of the offences, it is difficult to understand how none of the boys received a custodial sentence. Instead, they were handed rehabilitation orders, with their ADHD, anxiety and low IQ accounting for mitigation. For me and many colleagues, this is appalling. To suggest that ADHD softens responsibility for crimes of this severity is, in my view, an insult to the victims, their families, and to the basic principle that justice must reflect the seriousness of the harm done. That is why, alongside colleagues, I referred the sentences to the Attorney General under the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme.
This case comes at a time when Labour ministers are considering changes to sentencing policy that would place greater emphasis on rehabilitation and alternatives to custody for certain groups of offenders. Rehabilitation has its place, and the public understands that young people who make genuine mistakes should have opportunities to be given a chance to turn their lives around. But what cannot be justified is a system that treats even the most serious violent and sexual crimes as lesser, simply because of someone’s age. The impact on the victim, like the girls subjected to these rape offences, is not changed in the least because the offender is 14, 16 , 22 or 36.
We are seeing a growing tendency to allow excuses to become more important than expecting people to take responsibility. I previously campaigned against guidelines that require judges to consider more lenient sentences for offenders from deprived backgrounds after a couple who were convicted of dealing class A drugs received two-year suspended sentences after citing poverty as a mitigating factor for their crimes.
We also successfully overturned plans on probation report requirements to be related to race, which would have had the inevitably consequence of weakening punishment for offenders with an ethnic minority background.
Justice must be balanced, but it must also be seen to be done. Victims and their families must not be left feeling that the system is more concerned with the circumstances of offenders than with the suffering they have caused.
I welcome the decision by the Government to have the rape offenders' sentences reviewed by the Court of Appeal. But the fact that this case did not automatically result in custody raises alarm bells. Our current approach to sentencing for the most serious offenders is simply not strong enough.
The public can accept second chances for young people and others who make mistakes. What they cannot accept is a system that appears to excuse repeated, premeditated sexual violence on the basis of ADHD or low IQ. Victims deserve a justice system that puts their suffering first and sends a clear message: the most serious crimes must be met with serious consequences.
