Media Storm - News Watch: Hantavirus v Ebola. Teenage rapists avoid jail.

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

Content warning: This episode contains discussion and description of rape, sexual assault and male violence against women and girls.  “THE TERROR OF THE MEDIEVAL PLAGUE SHIP HAS RETURNED TO HAUNT THE WORLD!” The Telegraph compared the Hantavirus cruise outbreak to the literal bubonic plague which wiped out 50 million people. Hantavirus killed three. These unhinged headlines exposed a news industry pining for the next pandemic, when Covid clickbait saw news traffic and subscribers hit record growth. But if the media wanted a catastrophic outbreak with a death rate twice as high as the hantavirus cruise, they had one at their disposal. The Ebola epidemic in the Congo and Uganda began at the same time as the Hantavirus outbreak. It has killed a hundred times more people and been officially declared a global emergency by the WHO. In this news watch episode, Media Storm compares coverage of hantavirus and ebola across UK and US outlets. The findings are telling. In part two: three teenage boys in Hampshire, UK, were convicted of ten counts of rape against a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old girl, in two separate, calculated attacks. Their punishment? Community youth rehabilitation orders, restraining orders with an expiry date… and a £26 fine.  Plenty has been written in the press about Judge Nicholas Rowland’s lenient sentence and ‘himpathy’ for the boys: they have ADHD, low IQ and need not go to prison! The media outrage did achieve change (the Prime Minister spoke up). But what was found in only ONE article may be the most crucial part of the story: the rapist boys had been reported to police multiple times, including for alleged sexual violence.  Why does our media fail to point to wider patterns of control and manipulation when it comes to cases of extreme sexual violence? If this is a systemic failure of policing and justice, who will hold them to account?  You can sign the petition for a Judicial Accountability Framework here.  Write to your MP about how the EHRC’s new code will affect trans people here.  You can call Rape Crisis 24/7 for free on 0808 500 222.  This episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@mathildamall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) and Helena Wadia (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@helenawadia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)  The music is by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @soundofsamfire⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us ⁠⁠@mediastormpod⁠ Edited by Toka Omer Qassem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Please note, this episode contains discussion and description of rape, sexual assault and violence against women and girls. Media Storm is brought to you in partnership with Open Britain. A grassroots campaign group, making democracy work for everyone, not just the rich and powerful. Hello, Matilda. Hello Hannah. Hello Media Stormers. Guys, buckle in. We've got a big news watch for you. first one back of the new series. I know, I'm so excited, but before we kick off, we can't start without some ramblings,

and I wanted to quickly mention something. So on the 21st of May, an updated draft Code of Practice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission was laid before Parliament. What does this mean? It means that if Parliament doesn't reject this by the 30th of June,

it becomes statutory guidance. Now, this draft Code of Practice sets out how trans people should be protected from discrimination, yet it affords organisations that wish to exclude trans people legal defences in order to do so. It says that single-sex spaces, from toilets to changing rooms, must be served on the basis of what is called biological sex, based on people's sex assigned at birth. So basically, this guidance is somewhere along the slippery slope of pushing trans people out of public.

life and it will come into practice after 40 days if it is not opposed. Now your MP can object, but they won't unless you ask them to and there are 24 days left to do so. So we put the link to write to your MP in the show notes. Now on with the first news watch of the news series. Today panic over a pandemic that never was how the hunter virus cruise ship got news outlets salivating while an actual epidemic was drowned out by the drama. And public outrage over three teenage boys avoiding jail time for rape convictions led to a flurry of news articles, but the majority of them missed the most crucial context. Cruise Chaos.

Is Hanta virus the next COVID pandemic? I'm deeply concerned about the epidemic. In the eastern Congo city of Bonina, excuse me there. The Prime Minister has spoken out on the case of, of three teenage boys spared prison after being convicted of the rape with two girls. I feel like no matter what I do, I can always feel their hands on me. Welcome to Media Storm's News Watch helping you get your head around the headlines. I'm Helena Woodyer.

And I'm Matilda Mallinson. This week's Media Storms. Pandemic panic. And how did teenage rapists avoid jail? So, full disclosure. I got my News Watch inspo today watching The Daily Show with John Stewart. He was ranting about U.S. broadcasters sheer desperation to create panic around hantavirus. Does this have the markings of the next pandemic or no?

No. Should we still not be sounding the alarm? I don't think we have to be very anxious about it. Should we be worried that we have an American here who's tested positive? No, it's a low risk to Americans. Should we still not be worried by this here in America? Correct. I don't think that this poses any risk to the general public.

It was so funny, so accurate, and so media storm. But it was unfinished. Oh my God, I've never heard you criticise John Stewart before. God no, never, the man has a time limit. It was a great segment. But look, as my husband, who was watching with me and who is a medic, pointed out while we were watching this drama, if the media wants a terrifying disease outbreak,

one with actual high transmissibility, a death rate twice as high as the hantivis. cruise ship and currently facing a historically rapid rate of infection, well, they have one at their disposal. But for some reason, they're not so interested. Let's jump back one month to when hantavirus hit the news. Friday, the 24th of April, the body of a 70-year-old Dutchman was removed from the MV Hondias cruise ship in St Helena. His wife disembarked with him and she died in hospital two days later. Now the same day, let's head over to Eturi.

In the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo or Dioces, a health worker began experiencing not dissimilar symptoms, diarrhea, fever, he died three days later. This would become the first sign that Ebola was back, those three workers who died in the weeks that followed and now believed to have contracted the disease as early as March. Take note, workers, women, refugees, they will be hit worst by the outbreak that's to follow. Wednesday the 3rd of May, back to the cruise, the World Health Organization announces its investigating a suspected hantavirus outbreak on the M.V. Hondias after the death of a third woman.

The Western media frenzy begins. Whip-cracking, vomiting bug ricks through Caribbean cruise, reports the Daily Mail. On the 5th of May, the WHO is alerted to a cluster of about 50 deaths of unknown cause in Eturi province of the DRC. A potential Ebola outbreak is feared, and the WHO dispatches another team to investigate. Nothing yet from the Daily Mail. On the 10th of May, the cruise ship anchors offshore in Tenerife, and a dramatic disembarkation process unfolds in which travelers are escorted to shore by personnel in full-body protective gear and then flown home on military planes.

Western media tracks every move. One French women and one American test positive following repatriation. Travelers are quarantined. No more deaths occur. And then five days later, the Congolese government confirms the Ebola outbreak in the eastern DRC. 246 suspected cases, 65 people dead.

Uganda has recorded its first death as well. Health experts are alarmed that the outbreak has progressed so much since the first case was reported. The Telegraph publishes a headline list day. The penile implant specialist leading the US's Hanta virus response. Sorry. Ebola also gets one. New Ebola outbreak kills 65 in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Both, of course, equally newsworthy. Well, not quite equally. As we'll see later, the Telegraph publishes nearly twice as many hantavirus pieces than Ebola ones, and their stats are better than most. Oh, Lord. By the 17th of May, the WHO has declared the Ebola epidemic in the Congo and Uganda to be a global emergency and calls on governments of the world to take necessary preparedness actions. Okay.

Now, as I'm about to painfully demonstrate, the media was pining for a pandemic, and yet beneath their noses, there was a genuinely catastrophic outbreak happening in the world. The current Ebola outbreak is the third largest in history, and it's believed to have caused hundreds of death already with some in Uganda as well as the DRC. There are fears it could have reached South Sudan already. The last academic, by the way, from 2014 to 2016, that was the worst and it killed over 11,000 people.

But data published in the British Medical Journal shows this one is climbing at a more rapid rate. And so aid groups warn it could become the deadliest in history. But evidently, it's not nearly as headline-worthy as a few white holiday makers being struck down. Let's look at what the media had to say. Wait, quickly first. You've mentioned a few technical terms, epidemic, pandemic, pandemic.

What's the difference? Okay, good point. So it always starts with an outbreak. A cluster of cases of the same illness beyond ordinary levels. Pantavirus stopped at just this, an outbreak. Next up on the health scare hierarchy is an epidemic. That's when an outbreak. spreads to a larger area, maybe a country, and it becomes worryingly present among a certain population.

The World Health Organization identifies the current Ebola outbreak as an epidemic in the DRC and Uganda. A pandemic is when an epidemic spreads across borders into several countries or continents. Such as COVID. Exactly. While this Ebola outbreak is not yet a pandemic and hopefully won't become one, The WHO has declared it a global emergency. That means strict measures must be put in place to prevent it from becoming pandemic. Okay, mainstream media time.

Let's rip, Matilda. Let's begin with the Hanta virus circus. A cruise from hell. A dream vacation turning into a floating nightmare. The race to contain a suspected deadly virus outbreak. The public health threat is so dangerous. Nightmare at sea. Cruise chaos.

Disease on a ship. I mean, it is the perfect drama. And on top of that ready-baked clickbait, to a society still traumatized from the global COVID pandemic, the media knows just which questions to ask. Is this another pandemic? Could the antivirus mutate? Understandably, some people are concerned.

It could become the next pandemic. The looming question, could this become the next pandemic? But unfortunately, for a very excitable media, actual scientists were quick to put things straight. and they couldn't have been clearer. I have no concern about that. I want to be unequivocal here. This is not the start of a COVID pandemic.

It's not like COVID. It's not like measles. It's not a very efficient transmission. The potential to spread beyond an outbreak is very small. We have been repeating the same answer many times. This is not another COVID. You don't need to be hysterical about it. Let's just spell out the timeline here. It was on Sunday the 3rd of May that our media broke the story

Hanta virus had been on a ship. Through Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, scientists upon scientist explained why this illness, though tragic for a few individuals, is a very low threat to public health. So here's what the telegraph posted on Thursday. The terror of the medieval plague ship has returned to haunt the world. Oh my God. Not referencing the bubonic plague. The literal black death, which by the way wiped out 50 million people and killed up to two thirds of Europe's population. Yeah, okay, that seems very proportionate from the telegraph. Very responsible.

Not remotely fear-mongering or, I don't know, completely insane. Let's just fast forward, shall we? You know, cut them a bit of slack. Skip the whole of the next week of similar headlines. It's the 14th of May. By this time, there have been no fatalities from hantavirus beyond the first three. Tragic, but not pandemic level, deaths. So that's no deaths for 11 days.

A WHO expert has taken journalists' questions very patiently. Maria van Kerkhova, an infectious disease epidemiologist, tells them, this is not COVID, this is not influenza. It spreads very, very differently. So hantavirus generally doesn't actually transfer person to person at all. But the Andes strain on the cruise ship is able to, only, however, with very close, sustained direct contact. By all metrics, it has a low transmission rate.

So what does the telegraph report? Hanta virus may survive in human sperm for up to six years and cause a transmission risk. Oh my gosh, just like digging for ways that it could theoretically maybe develop a transmission risk. 16th of May. And look, the WHO expert has really spelled it out. She said, I want to be unequivocal here. This is not the start of a COVID pandemic. This is an outbreak that we see on a ship.

The Telegraph writes, Could the rat virus spread through Britain's sewers? Oh my gosh, back to the plague. A plague upon both your houses. The Daily Mail reprints this scoop by the Telegraph. If you read the article, its entire premise is based on one statement by an anonymous doctor. I'm unclear if they're even a medical doctor.

Probably AI. Meanwhile, any doctor they speak to who is actually willing to put their name to their theory tells the reporter, this is ridiculous, this theory that you've asked me to comment on, is extremely low risk. That's the news, ladies and gentlemen. So another week goes by. There is still not another single hantavirus casualty. So naturally, the Daily Mail publishes an interview with a doomsday prepper saying, these are the cheap and easy steps you should take to prepare for hantavirus or worse. Crystal, the Doomsday Prepper, then tells Daily Mail readers,

I do think this could become a pandemic. Oh, never mind what the doctors say, thank goodness for Crystal, the doomsday prepper. Crystal's top tips, if you were wondering, Helena, include stocking up on a solar generator, seedling garden, body armour, and freezers full of meat. Great. Done. While many UK papers made a complete mockery of journalism with their hantavirus coverage, I do have to say somewhat gratefully that our traditional broadcasters like the BBC and Channel 4 were generally pretty grounded. US broadcasters, on the other hand, are unhinged.

And there is concern out there that more positive cases could pop up. The WHO has been vocal in saying this is not another pandemic or epidemic. situation, can they be so sure? Why'd they let them off the boat? Releasing them off the boat just creates new problems. Why did they get off the boat and then come back to America? People have a right to be nervous. It may come as no surprise in light of this

that on the 18th of May, a 20-year-old man in the USA was arrested for allegedly threatening to carry out a mass shooting on his local Walmart if the country went into a hanta virus lockdown. I cannot put this better than John Stewart, Daily Show royalty himself. So. We might have a right to be nervous,

but I guess the question the news might want to ask is, do we have a reason? And your assignment, news, should you choose to accept it, is to help the public discern the difference. Having worked in a newsroom during the COVID pandemic, you and I know immediately why this is happening, Matilda, traffic. Yeah.

I knew you'd say that. I got the data. This is all from Press Gazette. So the news conglomerate reach, which owns the mirror, the Express and the Star here in the UK, said it was getting 10 million page views more than average during the pandemic. The Telegraph saw new subscribers grow by more than 200% year-on-year of the pandemic. The financial times said the pandemic resulted in its highest levels of consumption and engagement online they had ever seen. Sorry, friends, but those daily death tolls breathed new life into the news industry, and I'm sorry for the crude comparison, but that is also just the way the news goes. Great stats. Now, let's look at some other stats. I compared Western media's

coverage of the hypothetical hantavirus crisis with their coverage of the actual Ebola crisis. I scoured the BBC Guardian, Times and Sunday Times, telegraphed daily mail, and I threw in the US's Fox News and CNN for luck. Not a single outlet reported more or even as much on the Ebola epidemic as they did on the hantavirus outbreak in the period that those two stories intersected. The BBC was the closest and nearly equivalent. Across the board, there was, on average, 240% more coverage of hantavirus than Ebola. This, by the way, as there were well over a thousand percent more Ebola deaths than hantavirus ones, working with the minimum estimate.

Fox News dedicated three times as much coverage to hantavirus, the times and the Sunday times, over five times, as many. much coverage for Hanta virus. The Daily Mail published a pathological eight articles every day about Hanta virus for a full 25 days. Eight articles a day. What were they even

writing? Believe me, Helena, you don't want to know that as time in my life. I can never get back. Oh, God. Okay. So, devil's advocacy, Western media is looking for the next pandemic, i.e. an outbreak

that could spread to where most of its readers are, right? in the West. Tourists on board the M.V. Hondias came from all across the West, and they had to be repatriated back there at risk of bringing the disease with them. No, look, that's not too devilish at all. It's a very valid point, and I'm sure it's exactly how editors rationalise this to themselves. It is worth pointing out here. Western travellers and health workers in the Congo have actually been infected. One US worker is being treated in Germany, cases are being investigated in Italy, and of course, that is where most of the Ebola coverage has been concentrated. Actually, during the last outbreak I described to you in which 11,000 people died, CNN and Fox News

ran headlines like Ebola, the ISIS of biological agents, and broader U.S. Ebola outbreak inevitable. Bloomberg Business Week published a cover titled, Ebola is Coming, written in dripping blood. For reference, Americans had a one in 13.3 million chance. of catching that disease. But I think this editorial rationale points to one of the biggest catastrophes in our media and actually one of our media's most misleading practices,

which is how we falsely compartmentalize the world. Meaning, just because it's happening over there, truly, truly doesn't mean it's nothing to do with over here. The situation in the Congo has been exacerbated by devastating aid cuts, not just infamously by Donald Trump, but by the UK and Europe, who used COVID as an excuse to permanently slash their aid budgets. Also, one of the communities worst affected by the Ebola outbreak is miners.

And if you don't know much about mining in the Congo, then your news isn't doing its job. So the mines in Ituri, where this outbreak began and where it's really concentrated because miners cannot not go into work during an epidemic. These mines give us Colton, Cassaturite and Wulframite. These are known as the 3T minerals. They are vital for electronics. Your iPhones, people. Child forced labour is prevalent in these mines.

They also give us gold, petroleum and diamonds. Mass consumerism over here fuels conflict over there. You see, these minerals are classified as conflict minerals, meaning their extraction is battled over by armed groups, while corrupt officials and foreign corporations use the profits to, A, arm those militias so that they can access more of those goods. This economy floods the region with weapons. It creates exactly the kind of destabilization in which diseases thrive. Another especially vulnerable group to Ebola is refugees, many of whom, incidentally, are then put to work in mines. So, displaced people, they have to move from place to place.

they live in densely populated, unsanitary and malnourished conditions, not great in an epidemic. The DRC hosts over half a million refugees and asylum seekers, mostly from the Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. These are areas suffering, not just from conflict, but climate crisis. South Sudan in particular is facing one of the world's most severe intertwined climate and humanitarian crises. Again, a climate crisis fueled in no small part by us. And just to really paint you a picture of the West's not our problem mentality. When a couple of US health workers began showing Ebola symptoms, US President Donald Trump announced they would be flown to Kenya for quarantining and treatment despite Kenya having zero confirmed Ebola cases itself. Turns out Kenya

wasn't super happy with this. A court stepped in to block the transfer pending future hearings and hundreds of Kenyans have been protesting outside the facility and several of those Kenyans have now been shot and killed by police because of this whole Trumpian disaster that they're dealing with. Oh my God, that is awful. These are stories about our world, about our society, and it's the media's job to make us see that. So look, in the vacuum left by the hantavirus drama

and as more Westerners become infected, media coverage of Ebola is increasing. But it is a story that cannot be told without the story of the conflicts that protract and obscure its rapid spread. So to end, here is a message from Pappy Orion, a Congolese filmmaker

speaking from GOMA in the DRC about his country and our media. In it, he describes an attack by a group called the ADF. That stands for the Allied Democratic Forces. It's just one, of several militias active in the region. This is an Islamic State-aligned militia, and it's proven the deadliest armed group in the eastern DRC. Dear friends, for us in Congo, it's really been a horrible, horrible weekend. We experienced

a massacre again in the city of Benny. This time the ADF Nalu came directly to the city of Benny and unalived people, unaligned fathers, mothers. children. But the very sad part about it is that the place where they came to unalive people close to that there was the army camp, 100 meters only close to that. But they still managed to come and slaughter people. So that begs the question, what is the Congolese government doing to protect his citizen? Congo deserved dignity. We deserve peace. We deserve liberation. We deserve to live. live without blood, the children of Congo have heard enough and this has to end.

Imagine as the world focuses on Ebola virus, this has happened only yesterday. No traditional media that talked about it or even care about it. People are caring about what Ebola will do because it might get to them. Learn about Congo, learn what has been happening. Congo need all of us. You can follow Pappy Orion on social media. Focus, Congo is another good Instagram page. Connect yourself directly to the communities that our media doesn't report on enough.

Let's take a break. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust.

Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Welcome back. Now, please note, the next part of this episode contains discussion about rape and sexual violence. None of you needs to go to prison today. You have all done very well with the restrictions put in place throughout the trial. I should avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily. These are the words said by a judge to three teenage boys found guilty of raping two teenage girls. I'm sure you have seen this story in the media but in case you

haven't. Here's what happened. Two girls were raped in two separate incidents in Fording Bridge in Hampshire in November 24 and January 2025. In the first attack, a 15-year-old girl was raped in an underpass by two boys, both aged 14. She had traveled to meet one of the boys for the first time after he had begun what she thought was a relationship with her on Snapchat. But then two other boys appeared. The court heard she was petrified, felt cornered and trapped and was threatened with being thrown into the river. The boys shared video of the attack on social media. In the second assault, three boys threatened a 14-year-old girl with a knife. She was forced to leave her phone and air tag behind so that she could not be tracked. Two boys took it in turns to

repeatedly rape her, while the others encouraged the offending and filmed the assaults. Video footage seen in court during the trial showed her lying motionless on the ground, with her face buried in her hands, while another boy was heard shouting words of encouragement. Forensic evidence revealed her leggings had been cut with a sharp instrument. The reason I'm relaying these details, however horrendous, is because the impact of what happened on the victims is of utmost importance, and something our media fails time and time again to portray. But more on that later.

Oh, that's harrowing. That's one of the most traumatic situations anyone could imagine in life. So these boys were found guilty. Yes, the three perpetrators who cannot be named because they are under 18, were all convicted of rape. Their filming of the assaults also led to convictions for taking indecent images of children. There were 10 rape convictions between them. Yet you started this segment with a quote from the judge who sentenced them saying,

None of you need to go to prison today. That's right. Judge Nicholas Rowland said, I should avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily and understand the effects of their behaviour and support their reintegration into society. The two older boys, now 15, were given three-year youth rehabilitation orders with 180 days of surveillance and supervision. The third boy, now 14, was given an 18-month youth rehabilitation order. They were given a three-month curfew and restraining orders.

By the way, a youth rehabilitation order is a community sentence. Oh, and they will also find £26 £26. 26 pounds. You cannot find a parking fine in the UK that is anywhere close as cheap as £26. Yeah, £26 £0 and a community sentence. The thing is, you and I, Matilda, both know from previous episodes of Media Storm that the prison system is broken. Our investigation way back in series one called Criminal Justice Does Prison Work,

looked at how there is no clear correlation between incarceration and crime rates and how the UK's tough-on-crime mantra is a political tactic rather than a moral stance. But whether we like it or not, whether we think it works or not, the UK government describes rehabilitation as one of the purposes of the prison system. And had these teenagers been sentenced, it would have sent a message that the seriousness of the crimes are truly being acknowledged, a message that comes at a time of an epidemic of sexual violence

and a newer epidemic of technology facilitated sexual violence. And it's not just the sentencing where we're seeing this essential decriminalisation. We already know that only one in six women who are raped reported to the police. This is often because of the rapes that are reported, less than 3% even go to trial. And of those that go to trial, less than 50% of those, 3% of those 1 in 6 that they were reported are convicted. Exactly.

And that is hugely important to remember because part of the reason that these teenage boys were found guilty is because there was video evidence. And it is so, so rare to have that type of concrete evidence in a sexual assault case. And yet still, these boys walked out avoiding serious repercussions for their actions. And like you said, Matilda, what message does this send, right? That three boys can be convicted of 10 counts of rape and not go to prison? Well, the best words to hear from at this time are the victims. Here's what the girl who was raped in November 2024 said about the judge's decision when being interviewed anonymously on BBC News.

The words hit like a rock straight in my face. he almost made it seem as if what the boys did was not okay but it was okay in the eyes of the law because there were still children. And what did that mean to you? It meant that why did I sit and put myself through the pain of going to court, going through a trial, reliving everything because of evidence and watching it all happen again?

It sort of gave me a sense of what's the point? Like what was the point and putting me through that? What has any of this got to do with the media? asking this is Media Storm. Well, it's got everything to do with the media. There have been probably hundreds of articles now about these cases and the judge's comments, and that's great, there should be. But it is public outrage that brought about these articles, not the media choosing to care about this topic. How do we know this? Because this is not an isolated case. In August 23, a 14-year-old boy raped two girls. He was given a youth rehabilitation order and was placed on the sex offender

register for 30 months. In April 24, a boy aged 15 was convicted of a serious sexual assault against a girl age 14. He was placed on the sex offender register for 42 months and given a youth rehabilitation order and a restraining order. In September 2025, a 17-year-old male was sentenced after being convicted of the rape of a girl aged 15. He was given a youth rehabilitation order and was put on the sex offender register for 30 months. I get a sense of faux outrage from our media because although the cases I've just read out did not make the press until recently, what about the many others that did? In 2022, Logan Reed, who was 19, sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl in Scotland, he was handed a three-year supervision order and told that his age had saved him

from being sent to prison. He was 19. In 2018, Sean Hogg, who was 17, raped a 13-year-old girl also in Scotland and was given a community sentence of 270 hours of unpaid work. In the US, in 2015, famously, Brock Turner was given just six months in prison for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman because he was a Stanford swimmer and prison would really affect him. But that was ten years ago. Surely things have changed now? Well no. Also in the US, last year, 18-year-old Jesse Butler was charged with multiple counts of rape, sexual battery and domestic assault of two female victims and was granted youthful offender status. And in Belgium, in In 2024, nine teenagers were found guilty of the gang rape of a 14-year-old girl and they have

been spared custodial sentences and instead received 30 hours of community service each. This is a classic case of the media capitalising on the outrage of the public and then failing to link the issue to the wider problem. And we do see this repeatedly. The law and the media will centre male defendants, possible lost futures, yet, the lifelong impact on girls will be seen as an inevitability, something that can't be helped, as if all of this doesn't create that inevitability. This actually has a name coined by the philosopher, Professor Kate Mann.

It's called empathy. It describes the disproportionate sympathy extended to male perpetrators of violence, particularly at the expense of female victims. And I think that that's the key part that it's at the expense, because I'm not against sympathising with people who commit crimes. But if you take what was this Jesse Butler multiple accounts of rape, sexual battery and domestic assault on multiple victims, and you do not apply custodial sentence,

then more women will be beaten up and raped. So the expense that we're talking about is severe. Absolutely. And back to the case of these three teenage rapists in Hampshire, you just have to look at the language used by the judge in this case to see empathy. The judge said the boys were very young. The first boy had been diagnosed with ADHD and long-standing anxiety and that therefore peer pressure played a large part in what went on.

The judge said the second boy had low intelligence and ADHD and the third boy had low intellectual capacity and a limited understanding of consent. So the judge in the case basically said the boys were not smart enough to understand what they were doing. Yet let me ask you a few things. They were smart and calculated enough to lure a girl to a fake date. They were smart enough to take a phone and an air tag off another girl

so that she couldn't be tracked. And they bought a knife with them. If you have a low understanding of consent, why do you need a knife? Also, many, many people have ADHD or anxiety and do not gang rape people. That is actually not only absolving the boys of responsibility, but stigmatizing neurodivergent people. Sexual violence is not caused by ADHD, low IQ or anxiety, and frankly, it's pretty wild to suggest that it is. And part of this hympovy, I think, does come from how quick the media is to adultify girls.

Check out this clip from LBC talking about this case. Feral teenagers gang rape two women and don't go to prison. Did you catch it? Yes. Two women raped. And then in the next line, I'm not going to criminalise these children, talking about the boys. But the women are not children. The girls are not children.

They're women. Exactly. Now, to be fair to this presenter, Tom Swarbrick, he or perhaps his producer, who may have been in his ear, corrects himself later. And it does become a bit of a teachable moment. Take a listen. I just want to correct the record here. Because I made a mistake in the introduction. I just came back and said that they raped two women. They raped two children. They were two children. But I do find it interesting that the judge referred to the victims as young girls, but the perpetrators as children. But not pointing this out was not the biggest media failing. The judge said, none of you have been in any big trouble before.

But this wasn't true. Two of the teenagers who raped the two girls in Hampshire had been reported to the police. to the police before for alleged sex crimes. As little as 10 days before the boys would rape one of the girls, they were reported to the police for an alleged sexual assault. The mother of a 14-year-old girl reported them because her daughter alleged she was grabbed by the neck by one boy and the other boy allegedly put his hand up another girl's skirt during the same incident.

The police say they investigated it, but there wasn't enough evidence to do anything with it, so the boys went free. By the way, the police didn't even interview the boys. Great investigating. The same mother contacted the police again two weeks before the second rape, writing, once again, the boy who allegedly attacked her daughter, is showing controlling abusive behaviour to young girls,

which he continues to get away with. Has everyone become complacent to his behaviour? I can't begin to express my concerns on this. And there were other reported crimes. One of the boys, who was 10 in 2022, was reported to the police for using his bike to corner two girls and say sexualised things to them. Hampshire police say there was an investigation

and they didn't take it any further. Two of the boys were reported for allegedly damaging property and hitting and killing a duck with a catapult. And also, they were reported to police for bullying children to steal alcohol for them from one of the town's local convenience stores. All of this was reported to the police and none of this made it into the pre-sentencing report that the judge would have seen because they technically had no criminal records.

The KC for the prosecution told the judge at the sentencing hearing that there are no previous convictions, cautions, reprimand, warnings or cautions, recorded against any of the boys. It's so confusing. I didn't know any of this, and I just don't understand. Like, I just don't understand the story at all now. How did this happen?

How does this judge seem to factors? I mean, I don't know what the judge was thinking, but why were they not thinking about the obvious continued harm that's going to come to girls? Well, there's a reason you don't know about the previous convictions of these three boys, because despite how big this story is, I can find this part of the story about the previous police reports

in one article in the Times and nowhere else. In fact, when I was researching this story, it took me almost a day to come across this crucial part of the story, and that's only because I saw the brilliant journalist who uncovered this story and wrote it for the Times, Sophie Wilkinson, post about it on Instagram. Every single media outlet who has covered the story of the judge's lenient sentences for these three boys should also be covering the missed opportunities

to stop these boys by Hampshire Police. Yeah, because that is actually, that is good journalism. That's what we're here for. You know, this reminds me instantly of Wayne Cousins, who was convicted for the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah. He had a documented history of indecent exposure six years before he attacked Sarah Everard, which police forces failed to properly investigate. That is exactly it.

No one starts with rape. There is a pattern of control and abuse which the media repeatedly failed to highlight. And it's really important that journalists make the connection to the broader issue of power and control. as rape or extreme sexual violence is usually an act that comes after other lower level but still horrible crimes. This does not happen out of the blue. This does not happen in a vacuum. Controlling and manipulative behaviour directed towards women and girls is usually the first sign. And this is why the controlling histories of violent boys and men should be joined up.

This is an abject failure of our policing and justice system. And this should be the story every media outlet is running. At Media Storm, we like to focus on solutions. So has the public outcry about the sentencing resulted in any change? Has the media outrage been in any way helpful? Yes, so Prime Minister Kirstama got involved and he said the case was distressing, to put it lightly. Attorney General Lord Herma said he had no doubt

about referring the case to the Court of Appeal. it has now been confirmed that that has happened. So the sentences of these three boys are going to be reviewed. Additionally, a petition has been set up by Laura Richards. She's the former head of the Sexual Offences Unit at New Scotland Yard. And this petition is to investigate Judge Nicholas Rowland and to introduce a judicial accountability framework. Now, Laura Richards has been speaking a lot about how misogyny and social attitudes

can influence judges to give lenient sentences to violent boys and men. And she says, this is not an isolated failure. It is a symptom of a justice system with no formal mechanism to hold judges accountable for sentencing decisions that repeatedly fail survivors. Judges operate with almost complete immunity from consequences. Judge Nicholas Rowland's remarks, citing peer pressure, praising the defendants and expressing concern for criminal

them demonstrates a fundamental failure to understand the lifelong impact of sexual violence. That is not judicial independence, that is judicial misogyny and it has no place on our benches. So they are also demanding a formal judicial accountability framework which would include mandatory sentencing reviews, transparent judicial records and real removal powers that are actually used. The petition is linked in the show. If you need help with the topics mentioned today, you can call Rape Crisis 24-7 for free on 0808-500-222. Thank you for listening. Next week we are looking into the use of facial recognition technology.

Is the UK a surveillance nation? If you want to support MediaStorm, you can do so on Patreon for less than a cup of coffee a month. The link is in the show notes and a special shout out to everyone in our Patreon community already. We appreciate you. so much. And if you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone. Word of mouth is still the best way to grow a podcast, so please do tell your friends and leave us a five-star rating and a review. You can follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helen Awadier and follow the show at MediaStorm Pod. MediaStorm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helen Awadier and Matilda Mallinson. It was edited

by Toka Kassim. The music is by Samfire.