Punishment?

The Mail has an article with the details of the sentencing of the

"nine members of a braying schoolboy rape gang who carried out a horrifying punishment attack on a 14-year-old girl"

Apparently:

"The boys were as young as 13 when they took it in turns to assault their defenceless victim while recording it on a mobile phone. The rapists were a junior branch of a notorious east London gang known as the Kingzhold Boys."

Here are some more details of the case:

"Ringleader O'Neil 'Hitman' Denton, 14 at the time, ordered his sniggering friends to snatch the girl from Hackney in east London.

Denton forced her to perform oral sex on him, joined by Weiled Ibrahim, 17, 16-year-olds Jayden Ryan, Yusuf Raymond and Jack Bartle, and 15-year-olds Alexander Vanderpuije and Cleon Brown.

The attack was carried out in blocks of flats in Hackney's Frampton Park Estate.

Denton had ordered she should be put through the sexual ordeal as punishment for insulting him to his girlfriend, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

One of the gang told the terrified victim, now aged 16: 'I can't help you now, I'm with my boys.'

Up to 15 boys were present during the sickening attack and parts of the girl's 90-minute ordeal were filmed on mobile phones.

In an impact statement the victim told how she has since attempted suicide, cannot leave her home alone and constantly has to look over her shoulder."

And the sentences handed down to these thugs?

"The nine teenage boys, including two aged 14 and 16 convicted of rape on the basis they 'aided and abetted' the attack, were given terms ranging from two years and five months in secure accommodation to indeterminate terms for public protection.

Judge Wendy Joseph QC sentenced Denton to an indeterminate term of detention for public protection and told him: 'You had power over the others.

'The pre-sentence report points to motives of revenge, sexual gratification and exercising a power over both your victim and your gang.

'Accordingly I sentence you to detention for public protection.'

Judge Joseph ordered him to serve at least three years and eight months before he can be considered for release.

Ibrahim received an identical term to Denton; Raymond received nine years in a young offenders' institution; Ryan was given eight years in a young offenders institution while Bartle, Vanderpuije and Brown were all locked up for six years.

The 14-year-old was locked up in 'secure accommodation' for two years and five months because of his age while the 16-year-old was given three years and nine months in a Young Offenders' Institution."

Here are some more details from The Mail's account of the attack, see if you think the sentences are adequate:

"when she returned on April 30 last year, her fears became a reality after she left a friend to walk home alone.

Denton snared her seconds later - with Ibrahim, Raymond and Ryan.

Threatening to beat her up and stab her, the boys put her in a head lock and dragged her to a nearby block of flats.

She was crying and fell to her knees as she was forced into a stairwell.

The victim's mother, who was by this time searching for her daughter, saw the disturbance in the street but did not realise her child was involved.

...

The girl was then raped orally by the boys as Raymond got out his mobile phone to record the sexual assaults.

...

The group moved to Trandescant House as Ibrabim began summoning more friends to the scene on his mobile.

'The victim knew, of course she was going to be raped again,' said the prosecutor.

'She could hear Ibrahim and others discussing her, saying there were other boys who would rape her badly.

'Eventually 15 boys assembled on the stairwell and she was 'raped repeatedly,' said Miss Merrick.

'The boys threatened her throughout, intimidating her and physically assaulting her.

'Ibraham slapped her face and pulled her hair whilst another banged her head against the wall and someone threw a bottle of water at her.

'She was spat upon, ejaculated on and abused whist she was on her knees in the stairwell.

'She broke down, turned her face to the wall and wept.

'The boys referred to this as crocodile tears.'

She eventually escaped when Brown helped her to leave despite his friends shouting: 'We're not finished with her.' "

Does two years and five months in secure accommodation, not prison, sound an adequate punishment? I presume that this "secure accommodation" will come complete with bleeding heart social workers, PS3s and Television in the room. I also presume that the miscreants will serve less than half of their sentence, maybe as little as a third; in which case they will be out by next October, that'll teach them. What about the leader of the gang? Three years and eight months before he can be considered for release, so he could be out just in time for the 2012 Olympics, that'll be nice for him. These sentences are not adequate punishment for the crime and rather than act as a deterrent may act as yet another signal to the UK's feral youth that "society" will not punish evil behaviour.