Footballers gang-rape 12-year-olds, freed

Six British footballers jailed for gang raping two 12-year-old girls in a park have been freed after judges ruled the girls 'wanted to have sex'.

The men, aged between 19 and 21, had sex with the youngsters in a park. But despite being handed two-year jail terms in March at Reading Crown Court after admitting various counts of rape, they were freed.

Lord Justice Moses, hearing the case with Justice Holroyde and Judge Francis Gilbert, branded their original imprisonment 'excessive' in what was a 'difficult' case.

'We do not believe it was right to impose immediate detention,' the Daily Mail quoted Justice Moses, as saying.

'The girls wanted to have sex and they had pretty miserable, fleeting, sex in a freezing cold park. It is what young people do, but they are not allowed to do it until they are 16. The law is there to protect them,' he said.

'If you have casual sex with someone you don't know, you run the risk of having sex with someone who is underage,' he added.

Judges heard how the men, several of whom are former members of the Reading FC football academy, were together on the night of the offences in February last year, the paper said.

They picked up the school girls in two cars after one sent a text message saying she wanted to meet and have sex with more than one of the footballers.

They drove to a park where the same girl moved away from the group, calling them over one by one to have sex.

The court heard she was more sexually experienced than the men and it had been her idea to arrange the meeting.

Footballers' families cheered as judges slashed their sentences on appeal, meaning they could be released immediately.