Men who committed sex offences in their teens have prison sentences cut

A panel of judges in the Court of Appeal ruled the sentences imposed on Nazir Ahmed, David Stansfield and Peter Hodgkinson during three separate trials were “wrong in principle and manifestly excessive”.

According to the ruling, the judges who imprisoned those men should have followed the laws and sentencing guidelines that were in place when they committed the offences.

It added: “It would not be right to impose a custodial sentence on an adult defendant if, at the time of the offending, no custodial sentence at all could have been imposed on him because of his young age.”

Ahmed, 65, was sentenced to five-and-a half-years imprisonment at Sheffield Crown Court last year, after he was convicted of buggery and attempted rape.

He committed the offences against two children in the early 1970s, when he was between the ages of 14 and 17.

In their ruling, the Court of Appeal judges said that if he had been sentenced for buggery, when he committed the offence as a 14-year-old with no previous convictions, it is highly likely that he would have received just six months.

His total sentence was reduced to two-and-a-half years.

David Stansfield, 61, was convicted of seven offences, including rape and indecency with a child, at Sheffield Crown Court last year and jailed for 16 years.

Stansfield, who sexually abused three children, committed the majority of the offences when he was a teenager in the 1970s, but he also raped one of the victims when he was 21 years old.

The Court of Appeal ruled that when he was sentenced, the judge did not give “sufficient weight” to the fact that he was a teenage boy when he committed most of the offences.

They said it is unlikley that he would have been given a long-term prison sentence if he was tried when the sexual abuse took place.

They also found the judge had made another two errors during sentencing, as violent acts had been “accounted for twice in the overall assessment of culpability and harm” and he had incorrectly stated there was an abuse of trust.

His overall sentence was reduced to 11 years, with a year on licence.

Hodgkinson, 66, was jailed for six years at Sheffield Crown Court in May last year, after pleading guilty to a string of indecent assaults.

He targeted two girls in the 1970s, when he was between the ages of 16 and 21.

The Court of Appeal judges stated that “immediate custodial terms of some length were justified” because Hodgkinson committed some of the offences when he was “a young adult rather than a child”.

But they also ruled that his prison sentence was “excessive”, as it was “significantly greater than the term which would have been available” at the time when he committed those offences.

His overall sentence was reduced to four years, with an extended licence period of two years.