🚨 “HOW ARE THEY NOT IN JAIL?!” Minister Breaks Down LIVE On TV After Court Fury 😳💔

A government minister broke down in tears on live TV after hearing the schoolgirl who was raped by two teenage boys say the judge’s decision to spare them jail felt like a ‘rock straight in my face’.

The girl, who was 15 at the time of the incident, was raped by the boys, who filmed the incident and the shared the footage online, on November 26, 2024, in Fordingbridge, Hampshire.

The judge sparked outrage last week by praising the teens for their conduct at the trial and handing them youth rehabilitation orders instead of jail, despite the callous attacks which saw them take turns raping two girls on different occasions.

In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, one of the victims – who was 15 at the time of the incident – asked: ‘What was the point in putting me through that?’

A Government spokesman said the attorney general’s office had received ‘multiple’ requests for the sentences to be reviewed under the Unduly Lenient Scheme.

After the harrowing interview with the girl, her mother and mother’s partner, Ms Kuenssberg spoke to Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones who appeared emotional after hearing what the teenager had to say.

Explaining the next steps, he said: ‘The legal process is that the Attorney General now reviews the decision from the court.

‘He has 28 days to make a decision, whether to refer it to the Court of Appeal.

‘The Attorney General will make a decision quicker than that.’

His eyes welled up as he said: ‘As a minister, what I can’t do is get ahead of the Attorney General’s decision, but as a parent and as a member of the public, you can imagine what my personal view is on the situation.

‘Those girls deserve justice, as do their families, both for them, but also for other girls that are put in that position.

‘And quite frankly, other boys need to know that they can’t behave in that way and get away with it.’

Noticing the emotional response from the minister, Ms Kuenssberg said: ‘You’re here as a minister, but I can tell from listening to you that as a dad you found that quite hard to watch and listen to.’

Holding back tears, he said: ‘It was very hard to watch because no parent wants their daughter to be in those circumstances and you don’t want a society in which girls are growing up in those circumstances.’

When asked if he was worried about the message the lack of jail time for the boys sends to the public, he said: ‘I do because those young women deserve justice but I also worry about it because boys need to know they cannot behave in that way, it is not acceptable in society and if you do there must be consequences for it.

‘But this goes to our whole strategy on violence toward women and girls.

‘This is a particularly difficult case, but you know from talking to women that they suffer violence, abuse, in a way that is totally unacceptable.

‘We do know that there are impacts from social media and online pornography and the way in which boys, not all boys, but some boys are interacting with this content and thinking it’s OK to behave in certain ways.

‘I don’t want to generalise here and say that all boys are violent or all boys don’t care about young women, of course that’s not the case, but there are too many incidents of this.

‘I think it’s important for all of us parents, political leaders, but as a society to make sure we are having a national conversation about how we should conduct ourselves in this country.’

Asked whether the victims’ families could be expecting to hear news very soon, Mr Jones said: ‘We all want to look at this urgently, and the Attorney General’s made that commitment.’

The trial at Southampton Crown Court heard two girls were raped in two separate incidents in Fordingbridge, Hampshire.

The first attack on November 26, 2024, saw two boys rape the 15-year-old girl whilst a third boy watched.

The second attack saw a 14-year-old girl raped by three boys, who again filmed the horrific rape on January 17, 2025.

During the harrowing interview, the girl’s mother said: ‘We’ve gone through a trial that’s been 18 months long, come to an end, and, quite frankly, what for? For a slap on the wrist and off you go again.’

Her partner added: ‘I sat in a courtroom the other day, it seems to me like the victims are the ones that are suffering, and the perpetrators are the ones that have seemingly got away scot-free.

‘I had to bite my lip, I felt physically sick, and I was like, hold on, this has happened, it’s a despicable crime, whether it’s a child, an adult, anyone, and I just think the judge’s message was: “It’s OK, you can do it, I’ll just give you a slap on the wrist”.’

When asked what the judge’s decision and remarks meant to her, the victim said: ‘It meant that why did I sit and put myself through the pain of going to court, going through a trial, reliving everything because of evidence and watching it all happen again? It sort of gave me a sense of, what’s the point?

‘Like, what was the point in putting me through that just to say that it’s fine?

‘It took me six months to say something and essentially the reason I said it was because I was losing it, I was spiralling, I needed help but I didn’t know how to get it, so I spoke up.’

Videos of the vile attack were shared online by the boys, causing the victim severe distress long after the attack.

Speaking about how it made her feel, the girl said: ‘It was hard because I’d get no caller IDs. I’d get people calling me saying “Ohh, you had a threesome. Ohh, you did this, you did that. Oh my God, there’s a video of you”.

‘But I’d always get these calls, they’d always tell me how much of a bad person I was because I was so disgusting for doing something at such a young age, but no one ever knew the full story.

‘They said I was disgusting, that I should keep to myself, they said I was a wh**e, I was a sl*g, I was all the above. I just wanted to die. I wanted justice, I wanted to prove a point, but it feels like nothing was proven.

‘All I can think about it, if you can do the crime, you can do the time. I know it’s a well-known saying, but it should be more thought out, it should be something that actually happens.

‘My brain is telling me I’m not worth it because of what I did and it’s almost as if it feels like it’s my fault.’

Her mother added: ‘I just can’t explain as a mother to know that the people sitting in the same courtroom as you have raped your child.

‘This needs to be reviewed, this needs to be re-looked at, this needs to be given justice, this needs to be given a custodial sentence.

‘We need to remember this wasn’t a couple of teenagers at a party having a fumble, this was premeditated, it was thought about, it was planned.

‘It’s not just a one-off occasion, this is more than once, this is twice. They’ve been convicted twice of the same thing. How are they still walking around?’

Jodie Mittel KC, prosecuting, told the trial the girl had visited one of the defendants in November 2024 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 arrived, and the pair 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 ‘sl*g’.

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

The boys, both aged 15 and from the traveller community, were given youth rehabilitation orders (YRO) and made subject to intensive supervision and surveillance (ISS).

In the sentencing hearing on Thursday, a 15-year-old boy was handed a three-year YRO with 180 days of ISS for the rape of each of the two girls and two indecent images charges.

The court heard he had apparently 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 he had an IQ of the ‘bottom 1 per cent of his contemporaries’ and had apparently been diagnosed with ADHD.

A third boy, 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.’

Explaining his sentence, he said: ‘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’.

During the BBC interview, the girl’s mother issued an appeal to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, asking: ‘If it was your daughter, your niece, your son, your nephew, your family member, would you be happy?

‘Because we’re not happy and I don’t think any other member of the public will be happy too. So you’re in a position of power to help, so please help.’

Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones has offered to support the families of the victims if they wish to appeal against the ‘leniency’ of the sentences.

She said: ‘This is an extremely disturbing case. I’m deeply concerned these boys felt they could carry out such terrifying acts and share them online and not go to prison.

‘Their sentences reflect a clear focus on rehabilitation rather than criminalisation. They are far too lenient.

‘As they stand, they offer little comfort to their victims as they try to rebuild their lives after such harrowing experiences.

‘The education of young people about sexual violence and misogynistic attitudes is vitally important if we’re to prevent crimes like this from happening again.’

A Government spokesman said: ‘We share the public’s shock at the details of this horrific case, and our thoughts are with the young victims during this distressing time.

‘The law officers are urgently reviewing the case with the utmost care and attention.’

Lord Hermer will now consider the case and could send it back to court, which could decide to increase the sentences and send the boys to prison.