Two men have been jailed for just 40 months each for raping an 11-year-old girl after a judge agreed she was a ‘willing participant’, despite being five years below the age of consent.
Roshane Channer and Ruben Monteiro admitted assaulting the child in a block of flats in Luton, Bedfordshire.
Despite describing their crime as ‘abhorrent’, Judge David Farrell QC jailed the defendants, who are both 21, for less than three and a half years.
He said this was because he accepted their claim that she was a willing participant and agreed that she looked like she was 14. The legal age for consent is 16.
Rape Crisis spokesman Yvonne Traynor described the sentences for the attacks, which were filmed and are believed to have been circulated on a mobile phone, as being ‘among the worst’ she had ever heard of.
She said: ‘The abhorrence of this case spreads the ignorance of a judge that can believe that an 11-year-old could have been a “willing participant”.’
Guidelines in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 suggest sentencing for rape of a child under 13 should be between 10 and 13 years in prison.
The Crown Prosecution Service is now considering an appeal against the ‘unduly lenient’ sentences.
via >Child rapists jailed for just 40 months – because a judge said their 11-year-old victim was ‘willing’ | Mail Online.
