Judge admits sentence was unfair

9:04am Thursday 15th May 2008

TEENAGER Aqduss Rauf will today be sitting his exams after spending five nights in jail.

Hammer trial judge Carol Hagen yesterday said that she had wrongly sent 18-year-old Rauf to a young offenders' institution last Friday.

Re-sentencing the teenager at Bristol Crown Court she suspended the sentence and sent him home to his family, who filled the public gallery of the courtroom.

Rauf, 18, of Hereford Lawn, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit actual bodily harm along with Bilal Yakub and Mahbub Ali last month.

Judge Hagen said yesterday that it had been unfair to hand a harsher sentence to Rauf than Yakub, of Nursery View, Faringdon, and Ali, of Broad Street.

She told Rauf a reduced 12-month custodial sentence could be suspended for two years if he completes 15 hours of community service and stays out of trouble.

Judge Hagen said: "As you know last Friday was a very long, and far from straight forward, day.

"But it has been brought to my attention that I inadvertently sentenced Aqduss Rauf on a false premise."

Judge Hagen admitted that she had misinterpreted the implications of a text message sent from Rauf to a 15-year-old cleared of the same charge.

"You told me, and the prosecution agreed, that you texted him not to get involved in anything, because he had been involved in an earlier incident," Judge Hagen told Adrian Chaplin, defending Rauf.

"I have reflected on this and regret that I did sentence him on that basis.

"There is nothing to distinguish this defendant in my view from the other three given custodial sentences but suspended.

"I am putting it right today. I hope you understand it was not intentional on my part."

Mr Chaplin said: "As you can see from the public gallery, Mr Rauf's family are here to support him and his teacher came too.

"His exams start tomorrow, and in these circumstances, if you were minded to impose a sentence as those given to Bilal Yakub and Mahbub Ali, we would not seek to detain anyone any longer."

When Judge Hagen announced that Rauf would be free to leave court, at least 20 members of his family breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Rauf was found guilty of taking part in the planning of the attack on Henry Webster last January.

Henry, then 15, was left permanently brain damaged, when Wasif Khan repeatedly struck him on the head with the claw end of a hammer on the tennis courts of Ridgeway School.

Khan, 19, of Caversham Close, Walcot, was sentenced to eight years behind bars last week.

Rauf travelled to Ridgeway School in Wroughton from New College with Yakub and Ali after hearing rumours a 15-year-old was being bullied.