Mike Penning welcomes the Appeal Court's decision to double the sentences handed out to two convicted paedophiles.

Hemel MP Mike Penning, is “delighted” that the Appeal Court has doubled the sentences handed out to two paedophiles convicted of raping a 10 and 12 year old child respectively.

The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, had agreed to appeal the sentence of one of the men, Keith Fenn, after being contacted by Mike Penning. Mike wrote to her in June after Mr Fenn was sentenced to 18 months for raping a 10-year old girl. In reality this meant a stay in jail of just 4 months as he had already spent 8 months awaiting sentencing. Mr Fenn would have been released on 19th October.

Mike said:

“I have to say that, as a Dad and as an MP, I am delighted with this news. I am pleased that the Appeal Court has doubled the ludicrous sentence originally handed out by the judge. I personally still don’t think that 4 years is anything like enough for the rape of a child, but at least this paedophile won’t be back on the streets this week.

“There has been a succession of cases where the sentencing has been incomprehensible and I will continue to press for a debate in the House of Commons on the leniency of sentencing guidelines.”