Dominic Casciani

That's the background, and then the judge has the sentence.

And then basically, it's not a balancing of those two things, that a judge takes those factors into account, and then he or she comes up with the number.

It gets a little bit more complicated when it comes to youth offending, and I'll come back to that in a second.

But in essence, what the prosecution said was this was a series of offences of the highest harm possible.

what was called category one harm, which meant it was a sustained incident.

One of the victims, at least one of the victims, was particularly vulnerable.

There were additional factors which made it one of the most appalling crimes.

The personal responsibility of each of the offenders was the highest because they had significantly planned this and acted together and so on.

Therefore, that meant they went to the judge and said, if this was an adult offender, we

we'd be saying to you that the appropriate sentence would be between 12 and 19 years.

If it was an adult.

If it was an adult.

12 and 19 years.

Now, in the whole scheme of sexual offences dealt with in Crown Court, that's towards the high end.

You can't get much higher than 19 years before you get into life sentences.

That's the background.

Now, this is where it gets complicated because

A judge in a youth case then has to take into account prospects for rehabilitation.

It's a really important part of the exercise.

The sentencing guidelines are very, very clear that when they set about looking at the young offender, they've got to look at their development, prospects for rehabilitation, whether custody is really necessary at the end of the day,