Teenage Fordingbridge rape victim ‘will never be the same’, she says ahead of bid to lengthen attackers' sentences

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Jazmine (whose name has been changed) said she feels like she has been “carrying what happened every day” since the day she was attacked aged 15 by two boys in Hampshire in November 2024.

She said that the rape trial “broke something inside me”, amid a hearing aimed at deciding if the boys’ non-custodial sentences are “unduly lenient”.

The attackers, now aged 15 and 14 at the time, proceeded to rape a second girl in January 2025, encouraged by a third boy now aged 14.

All three were later convicted of multiple rape and indecent image offences.

The three attackers avoided imprisonment in May.

Following public backlash, the Attorney General, Lord Hermer, referred the sentences to the Court of Appeal as “unduly lenient”.

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The attempt to have the sentences increased is expected to be heard on Wednesday.

Jazmine described the trial at Southampton Crown Court as “traumatising” in a statement to Press Association ahead of the hearing.

She said: “I feel like I am carrying what happened every day. I wake up with it, I go to school with it, I try to sit exams with it, and I go to sleep with it. It is always there. I cannot just switch it off. I cannot just move on.

“The trial was horrific. It was not just difficult; it was traumatising. It made me relive what happened again and again. The trial lasted more than five-and-a-half weeks, and I had to go through giving evidence.

“When I gave evidence, I was questioned in detail about what I apparently did. I was asked about the details of what happened.”

She continued: “It was implied that I wanted it. It was implied that I was experienced in what I was doing. It was implied that I had chosen it or taken part in it.

“I cannot explain how humiliating and painful that was. I was 15 years old. I am a child who has been raped. I felt like I was being treated like I had done something wrong.

“The hardest part was being accused of lying. I knew I was telling the truth. I knew what had happened to me.

“I tried so hard to do my best whilst talking about something which has left me with such lasting pain. That broke something inside me.

“What happened to me has left me harmed so severely that I do not think I will ever be the same.”

One of the attackers, 15, was handed a three-year youth rehabilitation order (YRO) and 180 days of intensive supervision and surveillance for the rapes and taking indecent images of both victims.

The second boy was given the same sentence for three charges of rape against each of the two victims and four counts of taking indecent images by filming the incidents.

The 14-year-old was given an 18-month YRO for two charges of rape related to the latter victim after encouraging the second defendant, and for an offence of indecent images.

Judge Nicholas Rowland urged avoiding “criminalising these children unnecessarily” and said that imprisonment was a “last resort”.

Judge Rowland explained that the attackers' backgrounds played a part in the decision not to put them in custody, as the first had been diagnosed with ADHD and “long-standing anxiety”, while the second had an IQ in the bottom 1%, had ADHD with “extreme neurodevelopmental impairment” and presented “more like an eight-year-old”.

The case has been met with backlash, even from Sir Keir Starmer, who said he found the case “distressing as a politician” and “as a father”.

Jazmine’s family said that her life has been “changed forever” by the attack and that they had “been forced to come before one of the highest courts in the country simply to ask that the seriousness of Jazmine being raped by two teenage boys be properly recognised”.