A predator was able to avoid prosecution for a sex attack under controversial guidelines – and then went on to rape a teenager.
Lennox McGhee was 15 when he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in 2020 but the case didn’t go to court as prosecutors granted him a “diversion from prosecution” due to his circumstances and age. With no jail term or criminal record, it meant he was free target more young women and just two years later, he raped a 15-year-old girl in a park in East Kilbride.
Last week, McGhee, now 19, was found guilty of the sex attack and had to be treated as a first offender which meant he was jailed for four years and eight months. The mum of the victim, now 18, who cannot be named, has hit out at the justice system she believes left McGhee free to rape her daughter.
She said: “We’re furious, if he had been given the same jail sentence the first time around he wouldn’t have been free to attack my daughter. A system that allows rapists to avoid going to court and offers them things like therapy is disgraceful.
“A victim of rape has endured the most heinous of crimes and for them it doesn’t end after the attack. My daughter has to live with this for the rest of her life. What is the justice system saying to these poor victims who have gone through it, who are still going through it?
“We were relieved that he was given time in prison and that he is now behind bars but we wish he had been given longer. If it had been counted as his second offence, it would have been.”
Under prosecution guidelines, instead of facing trial, under-18s can be given therapy and spared a criminal conviction for a series of offences including sexual crimes. The Lord Advocate announced a review of the policy following a series of Sunday Mail stories which exposed how alleged sex attackers had been spared prosecution.
Last night, shadow cabinet secretary for justice Liam Kerr said: “This is an appalling case which many suggest a more robust earlier intervention would have prevented. It’s obvious that under the SNP’s soft-touch justice, diversion from prosecution is being applied in ways that are completely inappropriate.
“The public want guarantees that weak penalties are never applied in serious cases, especially those such as rape and sexual assault.”
McGhee attacked his first victim in his hometown of East Kilbride in June 2020. He pushed her to the ground, restrained her and repeatedly carried out a sex act on her without her consent. Less than two years later, he went on to rape the then 15-year-old girl in woods in the town, in May 2022.
The court heard the traumatised victim was left “broken” by her ordeal and still suffers flashbacks. Details of the 2020 incident were listed on what is known as a “docket” attached to the indictment in the latter case. This would allow the Crown to lead evidence on it during the trial.
Sentencing McGhee at the High Court in Glasgow last week, judge Lord Cubie told him: “It is relevant to sentencing that there was a previous incident on the docket where you carried out a sexual assault on an unwilling young female. This was, as advised by the advocate depute at the time, subject to a diversion from prosecution because of your age and the circumstances.
“So you, unusually, were or should have been acutely aware of issues of consent, sexual autonomy and the criminal law. Despite that, you took advantage of (the latter victim).”
Jurors heard how McGhee preyed on the 15-year-old girl after he separated her from her friends, took her into the woods and raped her. McGhee was described by the judge as “simply using her for his own satisfaction”.
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He denied raping the teen and the court heard how he claimed to have got “fed up” with the girl and that he had “palmed her off” to someone else as she was “annoying”. McGhee was said to have not expressed any remorse or “any understanding of the effect” on the victim.
Lord Cubie put him on the sex offenders register indefinitely. He is banned from approaching or contacting the girl for eight years. Asked about the case, a spokesman for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said: “As prosecutors, we utterly condemn Lennox McGhee’s actions.
“It is widely accepted that until men and boys change their attitudes towards women, society will continue to be blighted by crimes such as these.
“We have been looking carefully at how we deal with children accused of sexual offences and will soon publish information to help people understand how decisions are reached.”
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