Campaigners fear the sexual abuse of underage girls by teenage boys is becoming a ‘socially accepted norm’ after more examples emerged of youth offenders being spared jail.

The case of three teenage boys who walked free after being convicted of raping two girls in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, sparked widespread fury earlier this month.

Even Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer became embroiled in the fall-out from the case, describing it as ‘appalling’ before the sentence was swiftly referred to the Court of Appeal.

Since then, more cases have emerged of teenage boys walking free from court despite being convicted of serious sexual offences against young girls.

Details of three separate cases in the North East were shared with the Guardian by a charity supporting victims and were left horrified by the sentences imposed by youth courts.

The victim in one case, who was just 15 when she was attacked, said: ‘It feels like he just got away with it.’

In one case, a teenage boy was found guilty of rape and assault by penetration, both committed in August 2023, as well as the sexual assault of a second victim in February that year.

He was sentenced in youth court to a youth rehabilitation order (YRO) and placed on the sex offenders’ register for just 30 months.

In another case, a boy aged 15 was found guilty of assault by penetration against a 14-year-old girl and ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for 42 months.

The fixed period for sex offender notification requirements in both cases will likely expire by the time each is out of their teens.

In the third case, a 17-year-old boy was given the same sentence, YRO and ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register, after being convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl.

The victim in that case told the Guardian: ‘This isn’t a deterrent for others. Boys think they can do what they want so they make bad choices and take bad actions.’

The cases were flagged to the paper by the Rape and Sexual Abuse Counselling Centre (RSACC) covering Darlington and County Durham, who were at court supporting the victims.

Chief executive Isabel Owens said: ‘We are deeply concerned about the trend we are seeing towards more lenient consequences for young perpetrators’ actions and the impact this may have on behaviours and reporting rates in future.

‘The survivors who have experienced these outcomes say they feel hopeless and worried for other young people who might fall victim to the crimes of individuals who are not being held meaningfully accountable. They are rightly questioning whether reporting to the police and enduring the process is worth it.’

Leonie Hodge, of Justice Is Now, which campaigns for survivors of sexual violence, said the ‘laughable’ £26 sum attached to the YROs is less than a parking fine and ‘insulting to the public who put trust and faith and taxes into a system which is not protecting these girls’.

She added: ‘Teenagers raping other teenagers should not become a socially accepted norm. We fear it is.’

Jess Phillips, who resigned as minister for safeguarding and violence against women earlier this month, said sentencing guidelines did not take into account a ‘growing trend’ of children sexually abusing other children.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Ms Phillips called for sentencing guidelines for children to be reviewed, suggesting they placed too much emphasis on the perpetrator and not enough on the victims.

She added: ‘If we look at the findings in the Southport Inquiry, obviously a terrible and heinous crime committed by a child, 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.

‘We are essentially asking the girls in Fordingbridge, and now these new cases that have been reported in The Guardian, to essentially suck it up for the sake of the perception of what is best for the perpetrators.

‘I think absolutely this all needs looking at.’

She also called for more preventative measures to be put in place, including ‘early intervention’ at school or through the justice system.

Asked what was driving the rise in sexual offences committed by children, Ms Phillips said: ‘I cannot ignore the growth in online pornography, access to the most heinous things online for this generation that just simply didn’t exist in prior generations.

‘And so looking at what young people look at online, what they have available to them, and actually whether crime has become content for an eyeball economy.

‘Because in some of these cases they were being filmed in order to make content.’

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