Victims of child sexual abuse are being effectively told to “suck it up” for the sake of their attackers’ rehabilitation, the former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has said, as she called for an urgent review of sentencing guidelines for young offenders.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Phillips said the current approach placed too much emphasis on the perpetrators and their vulnerabilities, at the expense of victims and public safety. “We are essentially asking the girls in Fordingbridge, and now these new cases reported in the Guardian, to essentially suck it up for the sake of the perception of what is best for the perpetrators,” she said. “I think absolutely this all needs looking at.”
The cases in question
The comments come after a series of cases in recent months in which teenage boys convicted of serious sexual offences received non-custodial sentences, provoking widespread public outrage.
In Fordingbridge, Hampshire, three teenage boys were given youth rehabilitation orders after two were convicted of rape and a third of involvement in the attacks on two girls aged 14 and 15. The assaults, which occurred in November 2024 and January 2025, involved knife-point rape and were brazenly filmed on mobile phones, with the perpetrators encouraging one another. Sentencing at Southampton Crown Court, Judge Nicholas Rowland said he wanted to “avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily”, noting factors including their young age, low IQ, ADHD and mild cognitive impairment. He also acknowledged the seriousness of the crimes. The prosecution had advised the court that the offences were “akin” to a previous case in which a teenager received an eight-year custodial sentence.
In the North East of England, three separate cases emerged last week involving teenage boys convicted of rape and serious sexual assault of girls as young as 14. All three received youth rehabilitation orders and were ordered to pay a mandatory £26 court surcharge intended to fund victim services. Campaigners have described the fee as “laughable” and “derisory” in the context of such serious violence.
The attorney general, Richard Hermer KC, has referred the Fordingbridge sentences to the Court of Appeal for review under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, which allows Crown Court sentences to be challenged if they are considered too low. Victims of rape and their families have up to six months to request a review. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has described the Fordingbridge case as “appalling” and backed the referral.
Reasons behind lenient sentencing
The sentences have drawn particular attention to the framework under which young offenders are dealt with. Youth rehabilitation orders are the youth equivalent of community sentences, lasting up to three years and potentially including curfews, exclusion zones, drug testing or treatment. They are recorded indefinitely on the Police National Computer and are disclosed on DBS checks unless eligible for filtering.
Judge Rowland’s rationale in the Fordingbridge case centred on avoiding criminalisation of the boys, noting their age and cognitive vulnerabilities. The court heard that all three had low IQs and one had ADHD. However, the prosecution argued that the severity of the attacks – which included the use of a knife and filming of the assaults – warranted a far more serious penalty.
Phillips argued that the sentencing guidelines had not been updated to reflect what she described as a “growing trend” of children sexually abusing other children. She said the focus on the perpetrators’ vulnerabilities echoed findings from the Southport inquiry, which investigated the murders of three young girls in 2024. The Phase 1 report of that inquiry identified “catastrophic failures” by agencies, including a misunderstanding of autism that led to inaction, a lack of risk ownership and critical failures in information sharing. “One of the main findings of the first bit of the inquiry is that where we focus too heavily on the perpetrator and their vulnerabilities, and don’t think about the public safety element,” Phillips said. The youth justice system, she added, places a greater emphasis on rehabilitation than adult courts, with proceedings typically closed to the public under the Youth Court Rules.
Calls for sentencing review and prevention
Phillips has called for a formal review of sentencing guidelines for children, arguing they need to place greater weight on victims and public protection. She also stressed the need for early intervention, both in schools and through the youth justice system, to prevent children from committing sexual offences. “Early intervention, whether it’s school or through the youth justice system, has kept pace with that changing trend and those things absolutely need to be looked at,” she said.
Asked what was driving the rise in child-on-child sexual offending, Phillips pointed to the “growth in online pornography” and the unprecedented access children have to “the most heinous things online”. She warned that serious offences were increasingly being filmed “in order to make content”, turning crime into what she called an “eyeball economy”. Research supports this concern: a strong link has been found between pornography consumption and negative outcomes including increased risk of depression, anxiety, acting out and violent behaviour, as well as an increased risk of child sexual abuse. Studies show that men who sexually offend against children online are significantly more likely to use privacy software and consume violent pornography. Reports of online child sexual exploitation and abuse have surged, with significant increases in online enticement, financial sextortion and the use of generative artificial intelligence to create abuse material.
In the Fordingbridge case, the assaults were not only filmed but the footage was shared among the perpetrators. Phillips said this reflected a broader trend where crime had become “content for an eyeball economy”. She warned that prevention measures had not kept pace with these developments and that the sentencing guidelines must be updated to reflect the changing nature of offending.
