Sentence of 21-year-old child rapist deemed ‘too young for jail’ to be appealed

A child rapist deemed too young for jail is to have his sentence appealed by prosecutors after a backlash led by JK Rowling.

Sean Hogg, 21, was spared prison earlier this month and instead ordered to carry out 270 hours of unpaid work for raping a 13-year-old girl in a park.

The judge in the case, Lord Lake, said that had Hogg been aged 25 or over, he would have been sentenced to between four and five years in custody.

However, under Scottish sentencing guidelines introduced last year, courts are told to treat those aged up to 24 much more leniently, in part because it is claimed their brains have not fully developed.

The sentence caused outrage from Ms Rowling, the Harry Potter author, who claimed it sent a dangerous message to young men that they could attack girls with impunity.

The Lord Advocate, Scotland’s top law enforcement officer, said that the Crown would appeal the sentence on the grounds that it was “unduly lenient”. The appeal court will now consider whether to quash it and impose a harsher sentence.

“Sentence is quite rightly the domain of the independent judiciary,” Kenny Donnelly, deputy Crown Agent for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, said.

“However, the law provides for some limited circumstances in which prosecutors have the right to appeal against sentences.

“The Appeal Court has set a high test to be satisfied for this to happen. The sentence must be unduly lenient, which means that it must be outwith the range of sentences which the sentencing Judge, taking account of all relevant factors, could reasonably have imposed.

“The question of Crown appeal against sentence in this case has been carefully considered, and the decision to place this matter before the Appeal Court has been communicated to the complainer through her representative.”

Scottish Tories want sentencing guidelines scrapped

The Scottish Tories have demanded that the sentencing guidelines which saw Hogg spared jail are scrapped.

While they were written by an independent body, they were endorsed by the SNP government.

Lord Lake claimed that a jail sentence for Hogg, who was 17 when he carried out the attack, would not be “appropriate” due to his age and because prison would not aid his rehabilitation.

Court papers stated Hogg, of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, threatened the girl, seized her by the wrists and forced her to carry out a sex act before raping her in 2018.

He was found guilty by a jury but his lawyer has claimed he plans to appeal the conviction.