A sexual predator who avoided prosecution for one attack under controversial guidelines went on to rape a girl.
Lennox McGhee was 15 when he sexually assaulted a girl, who was 14 when the offence took place in 2020.
The case didn’t go to court because Lennox, now 19, was granted a “diversion from prosecution” because of his age at the time and due to his circumstances.
Diversion from prosecution is an alternative to legal proceeding in Scotland for under 18s and can be used by the country’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).
COPFS can refer an accused person for social work, support or treatment via a prosecution diversion. The measure aims to address the underlying causes of alleged offending and prevent further crimes.
But despite his diversion from prosecution McGhee went on to target another girl, who was 15 at the time of the second attack in 2022, in a park in East Kilbride.
McGhee was found guilty of that sex attack last week, but his sentence was four years and eight months as it was treated as a first offence.
The second victim’s mum has since slammed the justice system in Scotland, believing McGhee had been left free to rape her daughter.
She told the Sunday Mail: “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 he was given time in prison and 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.”
Scotland’s 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.”
Details of McGhee’s sex attack in 2020 were listed on a docket attached to the indictment used in the second case, allowing prosecutors to cite it during his trial.
High Court Judge Lord Andrew Cubie told McGhee at his sentencing in Glasgow that the first sexual assault should have meant the teenager was or should have been “acutely aware of issues of consent, sexual autonomy and the criminal law”.
Lord Cubie put McGhee on the sex offenders register indefinitely. He has been banned from approaching or contacting the second girl for eight years.
A spokesman for the COPFS 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.”
