PM Starmer calls rape case sentences 'appalling' as review launched

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has described a case in which three teenage boys were spared custodial sentences over the rape of two girls as "appalling".

He added that it was "right" that the sentences given by a judge at Southampton Crown Court were being reviewed by the attorney general.

Two girls, then aged 15 and 14, were raped in separate incidents in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, in November 2024 and January 2025, by two 14-year-olds. Another boy, then 13, was also convicted for his involvement in the second attack.

Sir Keir said the girls have "shown extraordinary bravery and strength in heinous circumstances".

At a sentencing hearing for the boys on Thursday, Judge Nicholas Rowland said he wanted to "avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily".

Instead, the boys were given Youth Rehabilitation Orders (YROs) - community sentences given to children, which can include unpaid work, curfews or a requirement to undertake treatment.

But one of their victims told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that the decision was like a "rock straight in my face".

The girl, now 16, said it "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 and her family want the sentences to be changed, and the boys sent to jail, saying the sentences amounted to a "slap on the wrist".

"Why did I sit and put myself through the pain of going to court, going through a trial, reliving everything because of evidence and watching it all happen again?" the girl said.

The teenager was 15 when she was raped in an underpass by the River Avon.

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 second victim was raped in a field.

The boys filmed the rapes on their phones and later shared some of the footage online.

In a post on X responding to the BBC interview, the prime minister said: "This is a harrowing and brave testimony.

"The girls at the heart of this case have shown extraordinary bravery and strength in heinous circumstances.

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

At the sentencing, the judge stressed the "seriousness" of the crimes and said the filming of the assaults made them even "more serious". He also praised the boys for how they had behaved during the trial.

The attorney general will have 28 days to decide whether the sentences should be referred to the Court of Appeal.

Cabinet Minister Darren Jones told the BBC he expects the decision to be made quicker than that, saying: "We all want to look at this urgently."

He said the girls "deserve justice, as do their families, both for them but also for other girls that are put in that position".

Two of the convicted rapists are now aged 15, while the other is 14.

One of the 15-year-olds was given a three-year YRO with 180 days of intensive supervision and surveillance for the rape of each of the two girls and two indecent images charges.

The other 15-year-old was given the same sentence for three charges of rape against each of the victims and four counts of taking indecent images.

The 14-year-old boy was given an 18-month YRO for charges of rape in the January 2025 attack by encouraging one of the other defendants.

The boys would not have been sent to prison if they had been given custodial sentences. People who are aged under 18 serve custodial sentences in secure centres for children.

Reform UK MP Robert Jenrick said justice had not been done in the case. "If a judge has made a very bad error, which I think has happened in this case, they should be accountable for it," he told the BBC.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said on Friday she was "sickened" by the case, adding: "The crime could hardly be graver, yet the punishment was no punishment at all."

"The law officers are urgently reviewing the case with the utmost care and attention."