JK Rowling leads furious blacklash after Scots man who raped girl spared jail

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has blasted “Progressive Scotland 2023” after a rapist who attacked a 13-year-old girl in a park was spared jail.The Scots writer joined campaigners and politicians in condemning the sentencing of Sean Hogg, 21, who was handed a community payback order for attacking the girl in a Midlothian park on various occasions when he was 17.Rowling tweeted: “Progressive Scotland 2023, where a man gets no jail time for raping a 13-year-old girl in a park.“Young Scottish men are effectively being told ‘first time’s free.’”First Minister Humza Yousaf said he understood the “astonishment” over the case but could not intervene.Sentencing a weeping Hogg at the High Court in Glasgow on Monday, judge Lord Lake said if the offence had been committed by an adult over 25, he would have received a jail sentence of four or five years.Instead Hogg was handed 270 hours of unpaid work, with the judge referring to new guidelines that make rehabilitation rather than punishment a primary consideration for under 25s.Hogg, who raped his victim in Dalkeith Country Park in 2018, was also placed under supervision and put on the sex offenders register for three years.Lord Lake said the victim’s age and vulnerabilities were “aggravating factors”, telling Hogg: “Prison does not lead me to believe this will contribute to your rehabilitation.”The move sparked furious reaction from women’s rights groups and was described as “extraordinary” by a leading KC yesterday.Jamie Klingler, who co-founded the Reclaim These Streets movement in response to the murder of Sarah Everard, compared the case to that of former Stanford University star swimmer Brock Turner - whose six-month sentence for sex crimes sparked national uproar in the US.S