A teenager who had been jailed in the UK for raping and sexually abusing two children has been released from prison just three weeks into his one-year sentence.
The Daily Mail newspaper said on its website on Tuesday that the young man was free to his village in southwest England, where he had inflicted huge sufferings on the family of two abused children, after only three weeks in custody.
The young man, now 18, had been convicted of relentlessly abusing one boy and one girl, 7 and 5, respectively, in the village in Devon. He was sentenced to one year in jail while judges also subjected him to a restraining order.
In his sentence issued in August, judges had ruled that the man had caused “untold damage” to the children through repeated sex attacks between 2013 and 2014, and possibly longer. The attacker was aged 13 at the time while the girl and the boy were five and seven, respectively.
The Daily Mail said the rapist man had managed to have his sentence reversed in an appeal in early September. According to the report, the appellate court ruled that the young man was vulnerable in the adult prison he had been held.
The family of the victims said they were outraged by the release of tormentor who had “ruined their lives”. They said they felt “utterly failed” by the British justice system.
“They've watered down the whole charge. For us as a family that is just devastating,” said the parents, adding, “Three weeks. I just found that such a ridiculous. It's preposterous. You would get longer for theft. That's the end of the line now. No further action.
The family said they had to explain to their children, now 11 and 13, that they could bump into the rapist man again and face him in the same village every day.