AIBU to think these boys should have been incarcerated?

[newrubylane]

BBC News - Teenage boys sentenced for raping lone girls
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clypg68e2neo

I've never started an AIBU before, but I'm genuinely really shocked. I'm just not sure how this sentence is justifiable. Their actions were premeditated and deliberate, they were carrying a knife and they filmed themselves. They're obviously a danger to women/girls, and probably to other boys too.

If anyone knows how and why this sentence might have come about, I'd be interested to hear it.

I have also written to my MP and raised an unduly Lenient complaint.

As a police officer I despair. It looks like the force is liaising with CPS with the support of the families to get this re looked at. A slap in the face not just for those poor victims and their families, but also the officers who will have worked incredibly hard with a lot of very clear and damming evidence, and for what?

I really feel for police who work so hard to get people to court, only for non sentences like this as an outcome.

In Scotland, Sean Hogg, who was given a Community service order for raping a 13 year old girl was subsequently acquited

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-67076504

Sentencing guidelines in Scotland guide against giving custody to offenders under 25. The thread on the Scottish greens had some discussion on this as one of their candidates is a prison abolitionist, and this is currently on the fringe of progressive discourse particularly in America. Be interesting to see if the sentencing judge has been taking on board any of these lines of thinking, as stuff that starts on the common rooms of universities eventually ends up being implemented as policy a few decades later

I despair. It’s not about age, rehabilitation, SEN or criminalisation of children.

Do we think these people deserve to be walking the streets? Mixing with our daughters, working along side them, sitting next to you in a pub, or driving taxis late at night?

I for one do not. They will reoffend and it will only escalate from here.

Form submitted. This cannot go unchallenged.

Where is the deterrent now?
All teenage boys can now assume that they can commit armed gang rape on a teenage girl, and even film it and distribute it, with no fear of incarceration.

its disgusting. It’s given the message that it’s ok to sexually assault women and children:

What's the legal sanction for naming convicted offenders under 18, by the way?

Just thinking of the few saving graces of the Daily mail in publicly naming the suspects in the murder of Stephen Lawrence, daring them to sue

This is disgusting.

i cannot understand why people think a 20+ year old should not be jailed for rape? Isn’t this the age group that commits the most rape, by far?

I cannot understand their mindset. It’s just so sickening.

They thought they would get away with it.

And they did.

W.t.f.

I agree. In the Snaddon case, he first offended when he was 16. He was of low intellect, but was able to plan his crime.

He committed the crime at a time when custodial sentences were still being issued to those under the age of 25, but his youth was taken into consideration and he pled guilty to a lesser sentence.

Upon release, he befriended another vulnerable victim and repeated his attack. The second time round, it was acknowledged that he lacked the capacity to understand the impact of his actions on others and he was locked up in an institution for the criminally insane. He's unlikely to leave.

If the boys in the case acted because of a lack of intellect, then they're not safe around the general public.

As others have said, they had the capacity to plan their crimes. They 'just' lack the capacity to care about others.

The ridiculous argument is that your brain isn't fully developed until you're 25. I wonder, then, that they allow people to go to uni at 18 and to become teachers in their early 20s.

Yes, boys who have behaved in such an evil way are 100% a lost cause.

Might not be their fault they ended up that way.

But that's the fact of it. They will never be decent and we shouldn't have to allow them a second chance to ruin someone else's life, or worse.

There is a massive difference between young people doing something a bit silly (aka stealing a traffic cone or getting a bit drunk) due to immaturity and planning a heinous crime. A gang rape isn’t in the former category. These young men knew what they were doing and there is no grey area here re consent.

Oh yeah. In the wake of Black Lives Matter quite a lot of US democratic hopefuls signed up to not just Defund the Police but abolition of prisons because all crime is caused by poverty and also racial aspects. (Nb I've not seen anything that suggests the attackers here are from an ethnic minority group)

https://nitter.net/skaushik100/status/2053336261721817287#m

Rapists don't need prison but just to um, change, as men, used to be the stock response

https://nitter.net/ZaidJilani/status/2053281396962075095#m

And they didn't just do it once but twice. Likely more times

I've submitted an unduly lenient form. The boys are unnamed, it was Southampton Crown Court on 21st May 2026. I urge others to do the same. These poor girls, and possibly others too frightened to come forward, deserve better than this.

Link to the form

Mention the place of the attacks - Fordingbridge
Mention the Judge's name - Judge Nicholas Rowland

The Sentencing Act 2020 (SA 2020) is the main statute governing sentencing in England and Wales. It consolidates and reforms sentencing law that previously was scattered across multiple statutes dating back decades.

Key provisions:

• Purposes of sentencing (s.57): Punishment, reduction of crime, reform and rehabilitation, protection of the public, reparation to victims

The place of the attacks - Fordingbridge
The Judge's name - Judge Nicholas Rowland

The Sentencing Act 2020 (SA 2020) is the main statute governing sentencing in England and Wales.

Key provisions:

• Purposes of sentencing (s.57): Punishment, reduction of crime, reform and rehabilitation, protection of the public, reparation to victims

I live in this area. I have written to my MP saying that girls here deserve to feel safe, so this decision needs to be reviewed. Hopefully he will agree and his voice will carry particular weight.

I requested my MP contacted him to raise it directly with him. She's great so hopefully he'll feel a bit of pressure to act.

Thank you for sharing, OP.

Absolutely spot on! 👏👏

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy2x7wxjego

Jess Philips

Quite, but the Scottish Gov think you can change your sex from 16 (luckily this was blocked). Via my job I’ve heard young male criminals say to me ‘but I’m under 25, I’m no getting any jail’. When jail is exactly where they should be. They know nothing will happen to them. So depressing.