Teenage rapists are routinely escaping custodial sentences, statistics reveal.
Sentencing data shows that in the past five years nearly three out of every four under-18s convicted of rape avoided immediate custody – with the remainder given some form of community punishment.
The Ministry of Justice figures suggest the teenage traveller gang spared jail last week over the rape of two girls is far from an isolated case, despite the national uproar.
The Hampshire case provoked a political storm after two 15-year-old boys and a 14-year-old were spared detention despite being convicted of raping two girls aged 14 and 15 in separate attacks.
Judge Nicholas
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