SCOTTISH RAPIST'S LENIENT SENTENCE TO BE APPEALED
The sentence of a man who was given community service after raping a 13-year-old girl was "unduly lenient" and should be appealed, the lord advocate has said.Sean Hogg was 17 when he attacked the young victim in Dalkeith Country Park on a number of occasions in 2018.
Due to new sentencing guidelines for under 25s, he was not jailed and instead given 270 hours of unpaid work.
The lord advocate has now said the Crown should appeal the sentence.
Judge Lord Lake said if Hogg, now 21, had committed the crime when he was over 25, he would have given him a jail sentence of four or five years.
Apart from being given a community payback order, Hogg, from Hamilton in South Lanarkshire, was put under supervision and added to the sex offenders register for three years.
His victim previously released a statement detailing the effect the rape and subsequent sentencing had on her.
She was diagnosed with PTSD, suffered from panic attacks and self-harmed on a daily basis following the attacks.
She also said she had undergone three years of counselling.
The teenager said CCTV was fitted in her home so she could see who was coming to her street and she would not leave the house without one of her grandparents.
She has suffered from anxiety and nightmares and has had relationship problems.
After the sentencing she said: "In my head I thought, he's going to come for me, he's going to want to hurt me.
"Why is it ok to rape anyone and not go to jail?
Now it makes me think, why did I even bother reporting the rape in the first place.
Nothing happened.
"I did not get justice, the system failed me, the judge failed me, he didn't protect me.
I had done nothing wrong and yet he is a free man.
You let him go, but gave me, the victim, a life sentence."
