Child-on-Child Sexual Violence: Average Rapist Aged Just 14 as Sentencing Guidelines Face Scrutiny
Jess Phillips, who resigned as Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women earlier this month, has warned that the average age of child-on-child rapists is just 14, and that existing sentencing guidelines are failing to keep pace with a growing trend of children sexually abusing other children.
Her intervention follows a case in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, in which three teenage boys — two aged 15 and one aged 14 at the time of the offence — were convicted of raping two girls in January 2025. All three received non-custodial sentences, provoking widespread public outrage.
The Fordingbridge Case
The victims were aged 14 at the time of the attacks. The perpetrators lured the girls, raped them, and filmed the assaults on their phones. A third boy, now 14, was also convicted of involvement in a second attack and an indecent images offence.
All three received Youth Rehabilitation Orders (YRO). The two older offenders were additionally made subject to Intensive Supervision and Surveillance (ISS). No custodial sentences were imposed.
Judge Nicholas Rowland, in explaining his decision, told the defendants: “I have to remember that you are not small adults,” adding that he sought to avoid unnecessary criminalisation and to support their reintegration into society. He noted that “peer pressure played a large part in what went on.”
One victim attended the sentencing hearing and, screened from the defendants, read her victim impact statement aloud. She has since said she feels “too scared” to leave her home.
Attorney General Refers Sentences for Review
The Attorney General has referred the sentences to the Court of Appeal under the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme, following what the government described as “multiple” requests for review. The referral signals that senior legal authorities share public concern that the penalties imposed may fall short of what justice requires.
Phillips: Guidelines Do Not Reflect Reality
Ms Phillips argued that current sentencing guidelines place excessive weight on the welfare of perpetrators at the expense of victims. She drew a direct parallel with the findings of the Southport Inquiry, which concluded that an overemphasis on offenders had left victims effectively told to “suck it up” for the benefit of their attackers.
Asked what is driving the rise in sexual offences committed by minors, Phillips pointed to the proliferation of online pornography and harmful content accessible to the current generation — material that, she noted, simply did not exist for prior generations.
She also raised a more troubling dimension: the possibility that serious crime is increasingly being committed as “content for an eyeball economy”, with offences filmed deliberately for online distribution.
Political Reaction
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch condemned the sentences in unambiguous terms, stating that the convicted youths faced “no punishment at all” for crimes she described as among the gravest imaginable. She said she was “sickened” by the details of the case.
The case has renewed pressure on the government and the Sentencing Council to review the framework applied to juvenile sexual offenders — a framework critics argue was designed for a different era and a different pattern of offending.