Decision to allow three boys convicted of rape to walk free sparks fury and debate in U.K.

LONDON — A judge’s decision to spare three teenage boys found guilty of rape at knifepoint and other serious sexual offenses from a custodial sentence has sparked outrage across the U.K.

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Judge Nicholas Rowland’s decision to issue youth rehabilitation orders, or child community sentences, to the trio was widely criticized in Britain’s press. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the outcome “distressing.”

Several campaigns calling for the judge’s removal have also been launched on social media, including one petition that was signed by more than 200,000 people.

The case stems from two separate attacks perpetrated two months apart by the convicted teens, who were 13 and 14 at the time. The victims were two girls, ages 15 and 14.

Member of Parliament Jess Phillips, a longtime advocate for women and girls’ rights, told NBC News in a video interview last week that she was “horrified” by the lenient sentences.

“Immediately I just thought that this is the wrong sentence,” said Phillips, who served as the U.K.’s minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls between July 2024 and May 2026. “No doubt about that.”

Along with other victim advocates, Phillips warned of the chilling effect the case could have for future sexual assault survivors when weighing whether to come forward. The ruling has also revived questions about whether the British justice system can be trusted to advocate for victims of sexual violence and has spurred calls for reform.

Starmer announced that the case, which he described as “distressing as a politician” and “as a father,” would go to the Court of Appeal; Attorney General Richard Hermer said he received multiple requests to review the sentences.

“There is an epidemic of violence against women and girls in this country,” Hermer said in a statement, “and this government will not hesitate in taking action to ensure all women and girls feel safe and have confidence in the justice system.”

Details of the attacks in Hampshire, a county southwest of London, came to light last week. (Underage perpetrators are not named in the U.K.)

“We have a word here in Britain called ‘gobsmacked,’” Ann Olivarius, an American-British attorney and advocate for women’s rights, told NBC News in a phone interview Friday.

“I just felt like there was a brick that landed in the face of all women, of social justice, of everything we believe in,” added Olivarius. “It violates the rule of law.”

Her comments came after one of the victims, speaking anonymously to Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC, said that hearing the sentencing outcome felt like a “rock straight in my face.”

“What was the point of putting me through that?” she said of the trial.

During the trial, Southampton Crown Court heard how one of the victims, aged 15 at the time, was raped by two of the boys in an underpass after arranging to meet one of them for a date, according to a news release from the Crown Prosecution Service.

Video of the rape, which lasted 90 minutes, was shared on social media, prosecutors told the court, according to Britain’s Press Association (PA) news agency.

Months later, in January 2025, a girl, aged 14 at the time, was assaulted after becoming separated from her friends, the CPS said.

She was threatened with a knife and forced to leave her mobile phone and AirTag in a shop so she could not be tracked. She was then taken to a secluded area and raped by two of the boys while others “encouraged the offending and filmed the assaults,” it said.

The perpetrators left the scene “when they believed they had been disturbed,” the CPS said, adding that the victim was later found distressed and reported the incident to police.

All three boys accused in the case were convicted on multiple counts of rape on March 5.

One of the boys, identified only as “Boy A” by the CPS, was convicted of two counts of rape and one count of taking indecent images of a child. A second, “Boy B,” was convicted on six counts of rape. Both were sentenced to three-year youth rehabilitation orders.

The third boy was convicted of two counts of rape and has been sentenced to an 18-month youth rehabilitation order.

As a result they will avoid custody, remain at home and complete a plan tailored and overseen by their local Youth Justice Service.

At their sentencing, Judge Rowland said he wanted to “avoid criminalizing these children unnecessarily,” the Press Association reported.

The court heard that one of the boys had an IQ in the “bottom 1% of his contemporaries” and was diagnosed with ADHD, according to the outlet. Another was also diagnosed with ADHD, while the third was described as having a “mild cognitive impairment,” the agency reported.

Both Phillips and Olivarius agreed the sentences sent a detrimental message to both victims and perpetrators that even with a conviction, rape and other forms of sexual assault will be met with leniency.

“Just don’t do it again in the next year or two and you’ll be fine ... that’s the message that there is now. It’s a totally free crime,” Olivarius said, adding that she believed the judge “should be removed from the bench” over the sentencing.

Phillips said that while she was in favor of some form of rehabilitation for perpetrators of sexual assault, she believed that the assailants in this case should have also been “incarcerated for their crimes as a matter of both punishment and public safety.”

She added that she did not believe any adequate rehabilitation program for young people currently exists in the U.K. to address the realities of sexual violence and misogyny in society.

The Sentencing Council for England and Wales maintains that even in serious cases, a “custodial sentence should always be a measure of last resort for children and young people.”

In the U.S., by contrast, every state has at least one transfer mechanism allowing young people to be charged in the adult criminal legal system, according to The Sentencing Project, which advocates for “effective and humane” responses to crime that minimize imprisonment.

In both the U.K. and the U.S., there have long been challenges in seeing reports of sexual violence result in charges and, ultimately, convictions.

In 2024, there were at least 71,227 incidents of rape recorded by police in England and Wales, according to Rape Crisis England & Wales, a charity.

By the end of 2024, the charity said, charges were brought in just 2.7% of those cases.

“In other words... fewer than 3 in 100 rapes recorded by police in 2024 resulted in someone being charged that same year,” it says on its website.

In the U.S., just last year, an NBC News investigation found that less than 4% of reported rapes, sexual assaults and child sex abuse allegations in certain cities ever result in a sex crime conviction.

Meanwhile, Phillips said, victims are left to live with the impacts of the perpetrators’ actions — with the survivors in this case forced to continue to relive their ordeals as the case continues on to the Court of Appeal.

Speaking with the BBC, the other victim in the case said she lived in fear that she was going to see her assailants again, even with restraining orders in place, as she spoke of the devastating impact of their crimes.

“I feel like no matter what I do, I can always feel their hands on me, no matter how much I’ve scrubbed,” she told the broadcaster.

“It’s always there and it just doesn’t feel like my body anymore.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. The hotline, run by the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network (RAINN), can put you in contact with your local rape crisis center. You can also access RAINN’s online chat service at rainn.org/get-help.