Boys convicted of rape get non-custodial sentences as judge says they should not be criminalised unnecessarily

Boys physically overpowered and then filmed attacks on teenage victims in separate incidents in Hampshire Three teenage boys convicted of knife-point rape and other serious sexual offences against two teenage girls in Hampshire have not been given custodial sentences because the judge said he “should avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily”. The boys, who were aged between 13 and 14 at the time of their offences, physically overpowered and sexually assaulted the girls, who were aged 14 and 15, in separate incidents two months apart. The boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were sentenced to youth rehabilitation orders ranging between 18 months and three years for their roles in the attacks, which prosecutors said were “brazenly filmed” on mobile phones. They were convicted of rape even in circumstances where they aided and abetted another boy to carry out an attack. One 15-year-old boy was convicted of three charges of rape against the two victims, who did not know each other, and four counts of taking indecent images. He will be subject to 180 days of intensive supervision and surveillance. The court heard he had an IQ of the “bottom 1% of his contemporaries” and