A window cleaner convicted of raping a 10-year-old girl may have his prison sentence extended following a campaign by a Conservative backbencher. Keith Fenn, 24, was handed a two year term after attacking the girl in a park in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. When the time he served in prison awaiting trial is taken into account, he could be out in as little as four months.Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, today announced that he had requested details of the case from the Crown Prosecution Service, to decide whether to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal. During the trial the judge was reported to have made reference to the victim's "provocative" clothing, as well as the fact that she looked older than her years.
Lord Goldsmith became involved after Mike Penning, Tory MP for Hemel Hempstead, wrote complaining that the sentence was "pathetically lenient". Mr Penning said today: "I'm very pleased we have got through the first stage of the process.
"I hope that the Attorney General agrees with the vast majority of the country that if you want to deter paedophiles you have to give sentences which are a deterrent."
The victim does not live in Mr Penning's constituency, but the MP said he felt he had a duty to take up her case because she is in care. "I am appalled at the leniency of this sentence; frankly a sentence this lenient for such a serious crime makes a mockery of the legal system and I call on you to use your powers and appeal against this indulgent ruling," he wrote in his letter to Lord Goldsmith.
"What sort of deterrent is this to those who wish to physically abuse our children?"
Fenn was sentenced to concurrent two year and 18 month terms by Judge Julian Hall at Oxford Crown Court. Judge Hall hit the headlines in February when he suggested that compensation paid to another child sex abuse victim could be used to buy a new bicycle to cheer the child up.
Michelle Elliot, director of Kidscape, the children's charity, said: "Given what Judge Hall has said before in another child sex abuse case, I don't think he should be sitting on these kinds of cases.
"No one in my opinion could mistake a 10-year-old child, even dressed up, for a 16-year-old. They are just trying very hard to find excuses.
"You can never blame a child victim for sexual abuse when excusing the abuser of any kind of abuse."