The young victim of a rapist who was spared jail has said she “couldn’t breathe” when she heard his sentence.
She was 13 when Sean Hogg, then 17, raped her in Dalkeith Country Park in Midlothian.
Hogg, now 21, was sentenced earlier this month at the High Court in Glasgow to a community payback order of 270 hours of unpaid work after being found guilty.
The sentence sparked outrage and calls to review sentencing guidelines which advises custodial sentences should be imposed only on those under the age of 25, if no other sentence is appropriate.
Court papers state Hogg carried out assaults at Dalkeith Country Park on various occasions between March and June 2018.
Hogg, of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, threatened the victim and pulled down her lower clothing, before seizing her by the wrists and causing the girl to carry out a sex act on him.
He went on to push his victim’s head down and raped her.
Judge Lord Lake told Hogg he “didn’t intend to send him to prison” as he did not believe this would “contribute to his rehabilitation.”
The victim, now 18, told the Sunday Mail of the moment she heard his sentence: “My anxiety went so bad, I felt I couldn’t breathe, in my head I thought he was going to come for me, he was going to want to hurt me.
“I was back to being that 13-year-old wee girl, scared of the unknown.”
She asked why he was able to walk out of court and said her life has been “ruined” by the attack.
“Now it makes me think why did I even bother reporting the rape in the first place,” she told the newspaper.
“Many girls will see what’s happened to me and think well why bother reporting rape, nothing will happen anyway.
“Is this the message we want to send out to girls, to children and women who are sexually assaulted and raped?”
Her lawyer, Aamer Anwar, tweeted: “My client and her family believe a failure to appeal 270 hours community service sentence for her rape by Sean Hogg would be a serious breach of justice by Crown Office.”
A spokesperson for Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service told the newspaper: “The Crown is currently considering whether there are grounds for lodging an appeal against this sentence.”
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