"Need to hold judges accountable" 45,000-signature petition calls for investigation after failure to jail teenage rapists
There has been much public outcry to the decision to spare the boys jail
More than 45,000 people have signed a petition calling for an investigation into a judge who sentenced three teenage boys convicted of raping two schoolgirls in Hampshire to community orders.
The petition was started on Change.org by Olivia S following the sentencing last week of three boys convicted of multiple rapes against two girls in separate attacks in Fordingbridge, sparing them all from a sentence of youth custody.
As previously reported by The News, in November 2024, two of the boys lured a 15-year-old girl to a riverside underpass where they raped her, filming the assault. Two months later, the same pair, joined by a third, younger boy, subjected a 14-year-old girl to a knife-point gang rape in a park.
Olivia has called for an investigation into Judge Nicholas Rowland, as well as the creation of a new accountability framework for all judges, but also argues that the case is not an individual failing but a structural one.
She says: “This is not an isolated failure. It is a symptom of a justice system with no formal mechanism to hold judges accountable for sentencing decisions that repeatedly fail survivors.
“Every public profession in this country manages both independence and accountability simultaneously. But judges operate with almost complete immunity from consequences.”
Presiding over the sentencing, Judge Rowland ordered the two older boys to serve three-year youth rehabilitation orders and the youngest an 18-month order.
Explaining his decision, Judge Rowland cited the defendants' young age, limited intellectual capacity, ADHD diagnoses, vulnerability to peer pressure, and limited understanding of consent as mitigating factors.
But the decision drew immediate public reaction and one of the victims spoke with BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme at the weekend describing the boys’ sentence as “like a rock straight to my face”.
There has been much public outcry to the decision to spare the boys jail with Hampshire & Isle of Wight Police & Crime Commissioner Donna Jones calling the case “alarming”.
The decision has now been taken to send the case to the Court of Appeal.