Given the tendency of British justice to hand out worryingly short sentences for perpetrators of sexual violence against women and girls, it should be a matter of some celebration that a convicted child sex abuser, Ul Nasir, lost his appeal against the length of his sentence. However, the reasons put forward by both the trial judge and the appeal judge are troubling to put it mildly.
Ul Nasir was sentenced to seven years for six offences against girls as young as 9 and 13. The appeal judge upheld the trial judge’s view that the sentence was justified because the impact of his crimes was greater as the family had been “socially isolated” by this episode which had “brought great shame on the whole family”. The judge quoted the father’s concerns “about the future marriage prospects for his daughters”. Another aggravating factor thrown into the mix was – that Ul Nasir, being Asian himself, “knew only too well the effect upon the children and their family”.
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