A judge handling the case of a teenage gang convicted of luring two young girls and then raping them gave them rehabilitation orders instead of jail.
And he praised them for their behavior.
“You have all done very well with the restrictions put in place throughout the trial,” claimed the judge, in the United Kingdom. “I think of you as very young and none of you have (sic) been in any big trouble before.”
Teenage gang who lured schoolgirl, 15, to underpass and laughed as they filmed themselves raping her handed youth rehabilitation orders https://t.co/rjymPLCwB6
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) May 21, 2026
It was in a report at Not the Bee that the details of the judge’s near-advocacy for crime appeared.
“Sane human beings know these little monsters deserve the most serve punishment available. This being in the UK, however, means they don’t even go to jail,” the report said. “The judge handed down ‘rehabilitation sentences’ for the three gypsy perpetrators while somehow excusing their despicable actions.”
The Daily Mail noted the gypsies, of the “traveller community,” were convicted of rape as well as taking indecent images of a child, because they recorded their own abuse of a 15-year-old girl.
The case was in Southampton Crown Court, where the judge said, “None of you need to go to prison.”
The boys targeted one victim on Snapchat, “before luring her to an underpass where they laughed and filmed themselves as they raped her,” the Mail reported.
First it was two 14-year-old boys. Then a few months later they were joined by a 13-year-old boy for a second attack, this time raping a young girl at knifepoint.
The Daily Mail said all three were convicted of rape during a five-week trial.
The report noted, “The soft-touch sentence quickly provoked a furious backlash, with a senior Tory MP telling the Daily Mail it was ‘a sickening case of soft justice,'” the report said.
One convict was given a rehab order with requirements for “surveillance and supervision” for 180 days, and another got a three-year rehab order with the same requirements, The convict who participated in the second attack was given an 18-month rehab order.
“Youth rehabilitation orders are a community sentence for under-18s which can carry a range of different requirements such as unpaid work,” the report explained.
It was Nicholas Rowland who was the judge in the case. He excused the boys for being very young and having low intelligence with a “limited understanding of consent.”
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp condemned the sentence, telling the Daily Mail: “These despicable traveller youths should have been jailed. This is a sickening case of soft justice. Repeated gang rapes against schoolgirls deserve the harshest penalties – as a punishment and as a deterrent. This soft judge is sending a signal that these appalling crimes will go without proper punishment, encouraging other offenders.”
Rowland claimed the perpetrators had been diagnosed with ADHD.
One victim, in a statement read in court, explained how, “All I want to do is die.”
The other described nightmares she endures.
