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.

No idea how you think that confirms he has been unduly light touched on crimes against women and girls during his career. It’s a news report of one single judgment with literally almost no details on the crime or the court hearings.

@BlossomtoesJudges retire at 75.

It was not raped at knifepoint by strangers in an underpass. But they were horrific rapes. You sound like you think it was not that bad a crime and thus does not deserve much of a sentence? Am I right in making that assumption?

This is the impression I'm getting.

How anyone could read the girls' accounts of their fear, discomfort and suffering and make this argument is incredibly depressing.

Precisely, so some rapes “not that bad”?
I am astounded people can have those thoughts.

@WrongKindOfFeminist Don’t you think all victims of rape have all the feelings you describe? This case was wrongly described by the CPS as having a knife involved. All judges try and sentence on facts not the views of victims. If we only sentenced on the latter, everyone would get life sentences, including dc. We don’t sentence based on the sentencing views and distress of victims. Judges take into account the facts of the crime and the original judge erred but that’s not wholly unusual. It’s been corrected via the law mechanisms. That’s why it’s available but we cannot keep having a go at judges who have a different opinion.

You sound like you think it was not that bad a crime and thus does not deserve much of a sentence? Am I right in making that assumption?

You tell me. How many extra years would you add to the sentence if a knife had been involved? Zero?

What about count 1 where she was subsiquently asked if it was consenting and said "yes", yet the jury still decided it was rape? If that had been a stranger rape at knife point you think it should not carry any extra time?

Y and another boy arrived at the Recreation Ground and joined X and C1. She was asked by Y if she wanted a threesome. C1 initially said "no" on a couple of occasions but then said "yes"

C2 was later to tell police that she had been made to leave her phone and air-tag in the Co-op on Fordingbridge High Street, and that three boys had then forced her at knifepoint to walk to the Recreation Ground through back alleys. Her account was however disproven when CCTV was recovered showing her leaving her phone and airtag in the Co-Op, in company with a female friend. Further, she was recorded on Ring Doorbell footage saying: "I can't be anywhere near my Airtag or my Mum will find me" and "We need to get away from the Co-Op now".

I have no idea how you disentangle all this but there is nuance and two years served is not as mental as it seemed to me before I read the judgement.

I think it's a bit more complex than that @JJkate. My summary of the CoA judgment:

• AG (so the Prosecution) is not arguing that the Sentencing Guidelines themselves are defective, nor that the Judge failed to follow the SG for the category into which he placed it, but that he got the categorisation wrong - this was the basis on which the reference succeeded
• J was compelled to have regard to a series of guidelines in addition to the specific guidelines on rape (para 16) which he did
• Victims provided Victim Personal Statements (para 42 - 46) outlining the effects on them which are in keeping with what one would expect given the offences - J was obliged to have regard to those too
• Circs of the offenders highly relevant because aim of sentence for children prioritises rehabilitation above punishment (para 79; para 107-8; para 112). This is the law and the J has no power to decide to prioritise punishment because of the high public interest.
• CoA very critical of the original prosecution sentencing note which did not provide sufficient assistance to the J - if this seems peculiar, it is standard practice particularly in complex cases that a sentencing note is expected to assist the J) (para 73 - 74)
• Seriousness of the offending must be viewed through the lens of 'seriousness' and 'harm' by virtue of s.63 of the Sentencing Act 2020 which is then mirrored in the SG. This is where a lot of the complexity comes in, because to a lay person, of course any rape is serious and of course it causes serious psychological harm to any V. But that's not quite the task of the sentencing J, who is being asked to assess where within the spectrum of the seriousness and harm inherent to the offence this particular rape and its effects lie. It would be no answer to s.63 to determine that by its very nature every rape should be treated as a high culpability high harm case. If Parliament wants to decide that every rape should be treated as equally serious then that is for Parliament (and the Sentencing Council) to decide. In this particular case the J was held to have underestimated the serious psychological harm caused to the victims.
• The Child Sexual Offences Guideline is really unhelpful (paragraphs 119 - 122) because it offers "two boxes without assisting the sentencer" and covers a vastly wide spectrum of offences. (The J in this case had in any event gone for box 2 which is the more serious of the two by imposing a rehabilitation order with intensive supervision)
• The J therefore has to go back to the adult guidelines in principle, and this is where the CoA disagreed with the sentencing J - sentencing J had placed this as a Cat 3A offence (para 94) and CoA said it should be a 2A offence. (para 123 - this identifies where the J fell into error)
• However, the CoA endorsed the guidance given in the previous case of ZA which is that for most "children in cases of ... sexual offences will not result in a decision that the offence is so serious that only a custodial sentence is possible" - (para 133) so v important to note that this decision should NOT be read as thinking that the J did something out of the ordinary or deplorable in handing down a non-custodial sentence. He did not.
• J's decision on 'dangerousness' was 'entirely conventional and in line with authority' and was not altered (para 163)

Para 178 onwards deals with the CPS's absolutely inexplicable decision to pour petrol on the flames by publishing that this was a 'knife point rape' when it was not - which has inflamed public opinion from the hang-the-boys crowd but has also inflamed public opinion on the girls-lie-about-rape side too, when as the CoA point out, the jury believed the girl was raped. It has also caused wrongful vilification of the trial judge who "carried out with care a difficult and complex sentencing exercise."

There is no 'nuance' or other implication that this was not rape.

Count 1?

when asked whether she was still consenting to give a blow job she said "yes". Notwithstanding that answer, X and Y were each convicted of oral rape

Irrelevant though because we're talking about the sentence here, not the verdict.

Very excellent summary. The only additional point I'd note for completeness is that the boys have been convicted but the CA judgment on sentencing also notes in passing that they are apparently appealing those convictions.

That appeal - if it progresses and one can only speculate on what the grounds might be - would be quite separate from this CA case (which was in effect the prosecution appealing the sentencing decision and only considered this not the safety or otherwise of the underlying conviction).

This thread is yet another example where people don't bother actually reading the source information behind the headlines, have no professional knowledge or understanding of the situation, and start baying for people's blood on social media based on their knee-jerk emotional reaction to news reports that barely scratch the surface when it comes to the complexities behind the scenes.

Judges have a very difficult job and the information they use to come up with their sentences is not information most of the general public fully understands. The law is complex and nuanced and open to interpretation. As others have said, plenty of sentences are taken to the Court of Appeal every year because of this. It's far too simplistic to think of it as a judge making a 'mistake'.

This judge does not need 'consequences'. They haven't done anything wrong. They interpreted the case to the best of their ability using the evidence and guidelines they had in front of them. That sentencing has now been challenged with a different set of eyes on the guidelines and the evidence presented, and a new sentence has been given. This is par for the course in the legal world - it happens all the time, and is why there is a Court of Appeal in the first place. Judges are individuals with their own experiences and biases and that will always factor into how they interpret the legal guidelines in front of them. Whether a female judge would have made a different call is an interesting question to consider, but we have no way of knowing whether that would have been the case.

I would also say that as someone who does volunteer work in prisons, banging up boys with very low intelligence in jail with a bunch of other boys like them for a couple of years is going to do absolutely bugger all to stop them from reoffending or help them to make better choices and have more stable lives in future. The longterm consequences and subsequent costs to the state of locking up kids this young is well documented and why judges are advised to avoid sending children to jail where possible. The victims absolutely need justice - but seeing the only worthwhile justice as being jail time for the perpetrators is a very limited way of looking at crime and punishment.

This isn't relevant to the sentencing exercise, but I thought possibly interesting that none of the three boys were in school. X had dropped out at the age of 10, Y had stopped attending in Year 4 although was said to receive home tutoring, and Z was home educated. I do wonder what checks where made on the quality of education they were receiving (and I'm in no way opposed to home education when it is done well).

I’m not embarrassed to say am not versed in legal-ese but is the argument in favour of the boys and judges decision really “well she initially said yes, so it can’t be rape”?!
As both girls were under 16 I thought that meant they couldn’t legally consent?

What other 'punishment' do you propose?

There is also the question of public safety, of course.

@WiggyPig thank you that is helpful. I think what you are saying is that the judge pretty much followed the rules. And you say, those rules might not be right but they still have to follow them and if society wants to change them, that's a separate matter for parliament.

I think two years is a very low sentence for rape. Very very low.

Absolutely! there should be some serious consequences for what that judge did and said.

And I think the revised sentence is too lenient still.

But the problem is that this is an old boys network where judges 'regulate' themselves.

Something that really needs to be addressed because sentences and comments made by (male) judges seem to regularly minimise sexual assaults and rapes and find all sort of excuses in favour of the perpetrators.

The description of what happened and the video evidence sounds very clear that the girls were treated like animals. It doesn't really matter that they were initially consenting or that she said there was a knife or that she voluntarily left her bag behind. It's sounding a bit like the "well what did you expect going to a man's hotel room alone at night after a few drinks" etc

Yes. He got a crucial bit wrong in that he assessed the category as a 3A not a 2A offence having underestimated the severity of the psychological harm caused to the victims, but incorrect categorisation by a trial judge is a very common ground of appeal, and this is why we have a Court of Appeal in the first place - because if a judge gets it wrong, and we accept that from time to time they will, there needs to be an appellate jurisdiction to correct it.

I do think assessing the severity of harm is a very difficult task here - firstly because any teenage girl who is raped is going to experience severe psychological harm, but secondly, I'm not sure how the J was meant to disentangle the harm caused by the rape from the harm caused by months of nasty public comment on her morals, her parenting, her truthfulness and of course courtesy of social media her identity.

@EnidSpyton I appreciate what you are saying and understand your explanations but as an outsider I think sometimes it is useful to have people that know nothing about a system and it's rules to be able to see it isn't right. what ways do you think we should deal with these kinds of offenders instead Enid?

Reminds me of Judge James Pickles who declared a victim of rape was “asking for it” by her choice of clothing (a skirt).

Men are the problem and only too often they are the ones in charge of reprimanding. So it doesn’t really work, does it.

Well it’s not to be anything that has a impact on them, or shows there are consequences for their actions, doesn’t prioritise them, would have to make sure they are praised for being oh so very brave when they are truly the unfortunate ones in this case doesnt it?

It's not a 2 year sentence though. It's four years. Which means 2 years in custody and 2 on licence in the community where they can be recalled to prison for breach of the licence.

That's the law and how sentencing works. The sentence is always automatically part custodial and part on licence unless the sentencing Judge imposes a minimum custodial tariff which they can only do in certain circumstances for certain crimes.

4 years for rapes committed as a 14 year old is right in my opinion.

I thought the original judgement was very wrong.

Its also a lot more than many similar offenders receive.

2 years in custody when you come out as an 18 year old is a sigificant proportion of their entire life.

When it comes to incarcerating children, many, many people will say it shouldn't be about punishment but about rehabilitation. Many people in the YOT world will recoil at the use of the word punishment but I think it should apply in cases like this. Even if going to prison is likely to lead to further trauma, offending and so on, I don't think its wrong to want the person to be punished.

I always think rehabilitation should co-exist with punishment.

But I also don't think excessive custodial sentencing should apply for young children because we want some kind of vengeance.

Justice must also be seen to be done. Thats a tacit acknowledgement that public feelings about sentences matter. Child rapists make people angry.

I'm damned if people get to chide others for strong feelings about child rape and berate them for lack of legal knowledge on the intricacies of law and sentencing.

@KindPinkEagle I hear what you're saying and it sounds like you work in the area? I know it's frustrating when people who know nothing about a system get angry about it and seem to misunderstand the inner workings etc but, as an outsider to this what seems to be coming across from people who do understand it is basically, those are the rules, and then some sort of semantic reeling off of the rules and telling people off for not wanting to accept said rules. I think people are rightly angry that sexual and violent offenses get such low sentences. I've yet to see anyone explain an alternative to locking up dangerous kids and adults that sounds like it would have good outcomes for society and the offender. If anyone is able to please do.