Victim raped at age 13 speaks out after her attacker was spared jail
She said sentencing her rapist to a community payback order would make others question whether to report rape.
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Your support makes all the difference.The teenage victim of a rapist who was spared jail has said she “couldn’t breathe” when she heard his sentence.
She was 13 when Sean Hogg, then 17, raped her in Dalkeith Country Park in Midlothian.
Hogg, now 21, was sentenced earlier this month at the High Court in Glasgow to a community payback order of 270 hours of unpaid work after being found guilty.
The sentence sparked outrage and calls to review sentencing guidelines which advises custodial sentences should be imposed only on those under the age of 25, if no other sentence is appropriate.
The teenager, now 18, told the Sunday Mail when she heard his sentence: “My anxiety went so bad, I felt I couldn’t breathe, in my head I thought he was going to come for me, he was going to want to hurt me.
Now it makes me think why did I even bother reporting the rape in the first place
“I was back to being that 13-year-old wee girl, scared of the unknown.”
She questioned why he was able to walk out of court and said her life has been “ruined”.
“Now it makes me think why did I even bother reporting the rape in the first place,” she added.
“Many girls will see what’s happened to me and think well why bother reporting rape, nothing will happen anyway.
“Is this the message we want to send out to girls, to children and women who are sexually assaulted and raped?”
Her lawyer, Aamer Anwar, tweeted: “My client and her family believe a failure to appeal 270 hours community service sentence for her rape by Sean Hogg would be a serious breach of justice by Crown Office.”
A spokesperson for Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service told the newspaper: “The Crown is currently considering whether there are grounds for lodging an appeal against this sentence.”