Three boys avoid jail after rape of two teenage girls

Three teenagers have avoided jail after the rape of two girls in Hampshire.

Southampton Crown Court heard two girls were raped in two separate incidents in Fordingbridge, with the first attack taking place on 26 November 2024 and the second on 17 January 2025.

A 15-year-old boy was sentenced to a youth rehabilitation order (YRO) for three years with 180 days of intensive supervision and surveillance (ISS) for the rape of each of the two girls and two indecent images charges.

The court heard that he had been diagnosed with ADHD as well as "long-standing anxiety".

A second 15-year-old was given the same sentence for three charges of rape against each of the two victims and four counts of taking indecent images in relation to filming of the incidents.

The court was told that he had an IQ of the "bottom 1% of his contemporaries" and had been diagnosed with ADHD.

A third boy, aged 14, was given a YRO for 18 months for two charges of rape in the January incident by encouraging the second defendant and an offence of indecent images.

He was described as having "mild cognitive impairment".

Judge Nicholas Rowland told the defendants: "I have to remember that you are not small adults. I have to think how likely you are to do serious things again and I need to make sure you do not do serious things again in the future."

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Explaining his sentence, he added: "I should avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily and understand the effects of their behaviour and support their reintegration into society."

He added that "peer pressure played a large part in what went on".

The victim of the first incident, who was 15 at the time, attended the sentencing and read out her victim impact statement.

She also read out a poem which she wrote and was directed to her attackers.

She said: "I was caught off-guard, I never want that to happen again, I will never get that innocence back again."

The poem included the line: "All I want to do is die, I no longer have fear for when that comes."

She added: "No one deserves the trauma of being raped."

In a statement read on behalf of the second victim, she said her school attendance had suffered and added: "I often feel overwhelmed, anxious and emotionally exhausted to the point where sitting in a classroom becomes unbearable."

She described suffering nightmares and struggling to sleep and added: "I feel ashamed, insecure and uncomfortable in my own body."

Jodie Mittel KC, prosecuting, told the trial that the girl in the November incident had visited the first defendant after meeting him on Snapchat.

The prosecutor said that after performing sex acts on the boy, who was then 14, she became "scared and anxious" when the second defendant joined them with a third boy who was not charged.

Ms Mittel said that the girl felt "cornered and trapped" and "petrified" as the two defendants raped her while the incident was filmed.

Ms Mittel said that afterwards, videos of the incident had been sent around and other people made jokes about her and she received messages calling her a "slag".

The complainant in the January incident, who was 14 at the time, was raped in a field near to Fordingbridge recreation ground while the incident was also filmed.

(c) Sky News 2026: Three boys avoid jail after rape of two teenage girls