Public outcry has forced the Attorney General to refer the sentences of three teenage boys who were spared jail after raping two schoolgirls in separate attacks to the Court of Appeal.
The two girls, aged 14 and 15 at the time, were raped by two 14-year-old boys weeks apart in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, with a then-13-year-old also convicted over his role in the second incident.
But despite the horrific nature of the attacks – which saw one of the girls gang-raped at knifepoint, the assaults filmed and one uploaded to social media – all three were handed youth rehabilitation orders and walked free
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