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

[BerryTwister]

I’ve just read that the boys who raped and filmed 2 girls have had their non custodial sentences changed to custodial ones. Judge Nicholas Rowland had originally let them off with non custodial sentences, but there was a public outcry and the Attorney General got involved. In court today it was stated that he had made a mistake, and the boys were remanded in custody.

I can’t find any information about what happens to Nicholas Rowland. Maybe nothing. But I really think there should be some consequence. Maybe some retraining, or perhaps not being allowed to try cases involving sexual violence against women and girls for a while.

In any other job, if you made such an error of judgement, you wouldn't just be allowed to carry on as you were.

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.

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.

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.

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..

I don’t think following guidelines is any kind of excuse.

I imagine there is quite a lot of flexibility in sentencing guidelines, enabling judges to go hard or go easy on convicted criminals. They can use their discretion based on various factors - severity of the crime, impact on the victims, risk of reoffending, mitigating circumstances etc, and I’m sure that one consideration must be the impact on the general public. The public purse pays the legal system to keep us safe, and to make us aware of what happens if we break the laws of the land.

These boys planned and committed the same offence twice. It wasn’t a “heat of the moment” mistake. They filmed it for their own amusement. The girls’ lives were devastated. It was as horrific as a crime could be, and the only mitigating factor was the age of the boys.

It should have been abundantly clear to the judge that this crime would horrify the general public, and make them fear for the safety of their children.

Giving the boys a slap on the wrist was never going to be acceptable or appropriate. The fact that the judge wasn’t able to see this makes me think may not be fit for the job. At the very least he needs some training on the impact of violent sexual crimes against women and girls.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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

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.

I remember this too and often think the same. It's only recently that some sexual violence seems to receive longer sentences. It used to be a few months. I just don't understand why they think it's ok to allow these dangerous rapists back on the streets.

Whether you like it or not the goal is not punishment but rehabilitation and in many cases a prison setting is only detrimental to a young teenager and serves no rehabilitation for them.

Does having a cognitive impairment mean you are less of a danger to the public? Surely that's a really important factor?

"The way the victims' lives have been changed FOREVER has just not been taken into account.
Nor has the fact this wasn't one crime, it was a crime they repeated, with another victim a couple of weeks later.
Nor has the fact they filmed it, and shared it on social media.
Nor has the fact that - despite the compelling evidence (that THEY filmed!), they still didn't admit it and the poor victims had to go through the trials."

I agree that rape carries too low a sentence, that's an issue with the sentencing guidelines and I think is a relic of the judicial system being set-up by men. (I also think child sexual abuse sentences are similarly inadequate). However, to be fair all these things listed were taken in to account in the court of appeal sentencing - you can read the judgement online. The impact on the victims, the fact it was filmed and the fact there were two separate occasions are things that pushed it up into a more serious category and lengthier sentences. The fact that didn't plead guilty is also taken in to account because there is no reduction for a plea. My anger is towards the sentencing guidelines, and the society we live in that allows males to see females as lesser and to be used for gratification.

It’s relevant to the issue of understanding consent and risk. One has intellectual capacity in the bottom 1% compared with his peers, the other was in the bottom 5%: That deals with culpability.

If you’re banging people up because they’re generally a danger to the public, then there are separate ways outside the criminal law to deal with that. Essentially, you’re treating them as though they have a highly infectious and untreatable disease, like Typhoid Mary. You don’t blame someone who’s contaminated like that but you take action to contain the danger. But you have to be care, given the history of states and rich families locking away inconvenient people.

I don’t think following guidelines is any kind of excuse

Parliament sets the guidelines. Parliament contains elected and accountable members. What you’re proposing is that the judiciary should ignore the legislature.

I'd have to link Instagram and MN wouldn't approve it. Here is one case, there are lots more.
https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18221964.jimmy-wilson-30-breached-restraining-order-assault-partner/

Likely he is so arrogant he won't give a shit though.

100%

10 counts of rape apparently - should be a sentence served consecutively for each one

So you've dug out one case from 6y ago to somehow show a pattern to his sentencing.

He's been a full time judge for 12y according to the internet. He sentences literally hundreds of people every year. Probably somewhere in the region of 6000 people in his career, and that's ignoring the many years he probably sat as a part time judge before.

He may be soft on VAWG, he may be soft on everything. Or he may not. Picking out a few individual cases out of thousands is meaningless.

Then it needs changing.

The amount of reoffending, especially in sexual crimes, is ridiculously high. These animals are let out again and again to terrorise the innocent.

Fuck 'rehabilitation'. The only way to keep the public safe is to lock criminals away from society, where they can't hurt people.

It doesn't matter 'why' the crime was committed. Low IQ, bad home life, mental issues, doesn't matter to the victims.

Shove them in 20 to a small room with a bucket in the corner, then we will have enough space.

Somewhere, and I can’t remember where, I read a bit more about this case and the judgement and the information showed that the sentence wasn’t as lenient as it seemed. There were other factors, I wish I could find it or remember.

Not to say it wasn’t right, it just wasn’t quite as outrageously wrong as the headlines suggest.

@HoppityBun no, I’m not saying all judges should go rogue and ignore guidelines. The point I’m making is that the guidelines will almost certainly enable a lot of flexibility. So defending the judge by saying his hands were tied by guidelines is incorrect. The fact that his decision was overturned proves that there was a permitted alternative path, and he chose not to take it.