Jenrick: Grooming gang members must face automatic life sentences

Child sexual groomers must face automatic life sentences and should be barred from big discounts on their sentences if they plead guilty, Robert Jenrick has said.
Setting out his party's policy in the wake of the Baroness Casey review, the shadow justice secretary said it should be 'the norm' for anyone convicted of a rape or sexual offence involving child grooming to face a life sentence.
He said they should also serve consecutive terms where there are multiple victims, instead of the common current practice where the sentences run concurrently. This would mean that a man handed three separate terms of 10 years for rape would have to serve 30 years.
Mr Jenrick also proposed that child sexual groomers should be barred from eligibility for a third off their sentence if they plead guilty at their first court hearing, as is currently the case under the discount scheme.
The decades-old system is designed to encourage early guilty pleas, which can spare victims the trauma of appearing before a court and also speed up justice.
The Tories are also proposing to review overall discounts where a guilty plea earns a quarter off the sentence if entered after the first hearing but before the trial starts. Offenders can also get a tenth off if they plead guilty when the trial begins.
Mr Jenrick said: 'There should be no guilty plea discounts for organised sexual exploitation. The privilege should stay only for low-level, non-violent crime where victims genuinely avoid court.'
As part of the proposed policy, he said dual nationals convicted of child exploitation should be stripped of their British citizenship and foreign nationals should be deported the 'moment their sentence ends'.
Loophole exploited
The Home Office has taken such action against two of the ringleaders of the Rochdale grooming gang scandal, Qari Abdul Rauf, a 55-year-old father of five, and Adil Khan, 54, who were jailed in 2012 for their part in raping or sexually assaulting 47 girls, including some as young as 12.
But the pair have exploited a loophole by also renouncing their Pakistani citizenship, which has led to a stalemate, with Pakistan refusing to take them back as it no longer recognises them as citizens.
Tory sources said they would investigate whether they could close the loophole and would also review the lower tariff discounts to sentences for serious offenders such as child sex groomers.
The moves follow low sentences issued to groomers such as Sohail Zaffer, 41, who was jailed for just three years and six months for raping a child, and Manzon Akhtar, imprisoned for four and a half years, also for raping a child.
Mr Jenrick said: 'These men have been sentenced but not punished. They are already back out walking the same streets as their victims.
'These were some of the few who were convicted. The Telford inquiry found that more than 1,000 girls were raped and abused, yet just 10 men have been convicted for their crimes.'
He said that even when they were prosecuted, serious flaws in the criminal justice system meant that they did not get the longer sentences merited by their crimes.
'Tactical giveaway'
'First, many rape gang trials happened more than 20 years after the abuse. Under Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, judges are forbidden from imposing a harsher penalty than was available at the time of the crime,' he added.
'In the 1990s, indecent assault on a child carried a 10-year cap, not life – so the court's hands were tied, even when the same act today would attract a life tariff.
'Second are discounts. A rapist who pleads guilty at the first hearing is automatically given up to a third off their sentence. The rule was meant to spare victims from cross-examination. In grooming gang cases, it's become a tactical giveaway – the damage is done, victims still relive the abuse in court statements and the perpetrator bags a shorter stretch.
'For group child rape that trade off simply isn't defensible, not least for victims who have waited decades for justice.
'Third is the totality rule: when an offender faces many counts, judges, as bound by the Sentencing Council, must make the overall term 'just and proportionate'. They therefore run most sentences concurrently.
'Mohammed Din was convicted of 11 rapes, each worth well into double digits, but received 14 years in total because the terms all overlap. That's barely a year per rape.
'The result? Derisory jail terms that insult survivors, embolden predators and shred public confidence in justice.'

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