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London’s Court of Appeal has ordered two British teenage boys convicted of sexual assault to serve four years in detention.
The teenage boys were initially spared custodial sentences, but the ruling stated that the original sentences were unduly lenient.
The original sentences caused a public and political outcry after three teenage boys avoided custody despite being convicted of raping two girls in separate attacks.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the case as appalling, saying before the appeal court ruling that he supported a review of the sentences. His attorney general later referred the case to the Court of Appeal.
The attacks took place in southern England in November 2024 and January 2025.
The two boys whose sentences were increased, referred to in court as X and Y and aged 14 at the time of the offences, were convicted in May of raping both victims and of offences relating to indecent images recorded during the attacks.
Lady Chief Justice Sue Carr, the most senior judge in England and Wales, said the repeated offending by X and Y meant a custodial sentence was “unavoidable.”
She said they had been “egging each other on” and making the offences worse by filming them.
“What you both did was so bad that we decided we had no other choice but to make these sentences,” Carr said in delivering the three-judge panel’s ruling.
Carr added that X and Y will be released after serving half of their custodial terms, with time already spent in detention and time spent on bail under curfew counting towards their sentences.
The third boy, referred to as Z and aged 13 at the time of the incident, was convicted in May of two counts of rape by encouraging one of the attacks and an offence of indecent images.
He was sentenced to an 18-month youth rehabilitation order.
The judges decided not to increase his sentence, with Carr saying he was “very young” at the time of the incident and found “some things really very difficult to understand”.
