To think that there should be some consequences for Judge Nicholas Rowland

Looking strictly at the legal reality of the court proceedings, the Court of Appeal did not find that the judge was acting out of malice or a personal disregard for VAWG. Instead, they ruled that he had fundamentally misapplied the sentencing principles by suffering from tunnel vision regarding the offenders' complex needs.

The Court of Appeal did not accuse Judge Rowland of corruption, bias, or malice. Instead, they ruled that he made a severe error of legal judgment by letting the offenders' extreme cognitive impairments blind him to the severity of the crime.

Why can't they send dangerous rapists to prison? And why don't they want to punish under 18s for violent crimes?

I was chatting to a judge the other day and he said they can barely send anyone to prison

Where? I can’t seem to find anything stating there’s a pattern to his previous sentences.

Fewer than a quarter of under 17's convicted of rape are given a custodial sentence. So presumably the judge was just following orders?

The third boy in this case, convicted of aiding and abetting one of the rapes, has still not been given a custodial sentence. The other two will be out in under 2 years.

I do believe there needs to be an internal investigation- for example, does he have form for giving lenient sentences for rapist, etc?

I hope there is work supervision, etc as surely even judges have managers?

I totally disagree. I didn’t agree with his decision, or his comments when sentencing, but you can’t run a justice system by being so vindictive against every judge whose has a sentencing decision changed on appeal. It happens quite frequently, you just don’t normally hear about it. I agree about retraining, though, and maybe the sentencing guidelines he thought he was following should be rewritten.

The sentence has bern changed, so the system worked.

The whole criminal justice system is broken, look at what happens when miscarriages happen, nothing, and nothing will happen to this judge...and 4 years each for what those boys did, it's nothing, they will be out in two at the most, what does it say to women who are abused, I'm just so disillusioned..

The aim is to avoid custodial sentences, for lesser crimes. The review found and stated that the judge decided the seriousness of the crime was unduly low. It was a personal decision to view it as such. Different organisations have been looking at past cases, he is seen to have been lenient when sentencing for violence against women and girls.

This used to happen a lot in the 80s. It wasn't a surprise when a lot of the judges were later found to be pedophiles or using rent boys. Like Police who later are convicted of DV.
The fact that a rape conviction can mean a non custodial sentence is the biggest outrage.

As much as I think the sentence is crazy on the face of it, there is very much an argument that the sentence was very much I in line with the guileless, which aim to avoid custodial sentences as much as possible for children of that age.

I don’t think a judge should be struck off for having a sentence reviewed.

Indeed. Around 500 sentences are varied by the court of appeal every year - most by defendants seeking a reduction, but also referred by the AG in the grounds of undue leniency. It's not unusual, it's just that this case was high profile and so we've heard about it.

I was appalled at the original sentence but when I read his sentencing remarks I could see how the guidelines took him there.

The real issue is the actual sentences available and the sentencing guidelines. And as people have pointed out, there’s a debate about the age of criminal responsibility. But arguably, if violence against women and girls is an epidemic, then the sentencing should be stronger to reflect that. Add in the wider issues in the criminal justice system around delay and prison spaces….. it needs detailed consideration and I don’t think the country is in a place for that to happen.

It’s not uncommon for sentences to be altered. If all judges were removed when a sentence is reviewed, there would not be enough and no judge takes sentencing lightly. This fact was stressed by the Appeal Court judge. She felt the careful weighing up of the facts by the first judge had not given appropriate weight to the trauma of the girls and she also found the CPS had lied about the case to the press. Knives were not involved but the CPS briefed that they were.

The original judge should continue in his role and child offenders need a range of sentences. One size doesn’t fit all cases. I assume the boys will be going to a YOI and we really don’t want to see hundreds more dc in them. If we raise the criminal age to 14, there will need to be revised sentencing guidelines.

The clue is in the name. They are judges. If we don't want to have humans in the loop, using their judgement around the circumstances of a case, then we could just replace them with a spreadsheet.

As an aside, I know two brilliant female lawyers from college. One is a judge, and the amount of abuse she has to put up with from the public and press (she sat on the sentencing panel for a good while) has put the other one off ever applying. It's often a massive pay cut for a good lawyer to become a judge, many do it to 'give something back' and serve society. Calling for pitchforks will result in even fewer good lawyers, female or male, making the switch

Yes we should shame everyone publicly when they make a mistake at their job.

The system worked, he was wrong and he was corrected by a higher court and the perpetrators are getting the sentences they should’ve had in the first place.

That’s enough now, I doubt very much he acted deliberately to try and let them off the hook, he made a mistake and he interpreted the sentencing guidelines in a way he ought not to have and placed too much weight on their mitigation. But he does NOT deserve to be struck of, shamed or vilified.

Interestingly, there's a campaign going on now, including by the Bar Council to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14, in line with most other European countries, and UN recommendations.

If that had been the case, then once of the 3 boys would have been too young, and the other two only just old enough by a matter of weeks.

I don't think we've got an appetite for this change in the UK, as the Bulger case is still ingrained in our national memory, but it's worth remembering that in many countries (most of Scandinavia for example), the boys couldn't even be tried.

I think they should have been jailed from what I know about the case, and am pleased by the result at appeal, but I appreciate that it's a difficult job to sentence children for such a horrific offence, and to balance the need too sevens then as children but also consider the impact on the poor girls who were victims in this.

I’m reading them now. Which comments were horrific?

Any idea how long they've already been detained for while awaiting trial? Presumably that counts towards their sentences, so maybe they won't actually be in a young offenders institution for much more time anyway.

There was an interesting podcast that covers the sentencing. It really challenged my instinctively desire for these boys to get long custodial sentences, though I am not sure it changed my mind.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3sM5fya66iHYi44RylIAG2?si=GdW5WYTJQKiIwLh0KuoU8g

I also struggle to understand what life is like for the boy with a bottom 1% IQ.

I only realised this afternoon that there were two separate dates for the rapes, one in 2024 and one in 2025. Both were filmed apparently.

Four years….hmm

In effect, he HAS been publicly rebuked.

https://www.change.org/p/remove-judge-nicholas-rowland-from-future-cases

There's a petition against him.

Great post, totally agree

This will be disastrous for his career. Getting a sentence altered by the Court of Appeal is a very bad look. But he was in a difficult position. As PP have noted, the sentencing guidelines emphasise leniency for children, and there are endless reports and campaigners urging judges to keep children out of prison. If you google it you’ll find dozens.

On top of that the prisons are full. Sentencing two extra people to prison means letting two other criminals out early. Those others might be equally bad.

I also thought the sentence was outrageous. I would just blame the system, the guidelines, the progressive “pro-children, evidence-led” campaigners and the successive governments who haven’t built enough prison spaces, as much as I would blame the judge.