Did a man with a darker skin tone and Arabic-sounding name get away with the rape of a 12-year-old girl in the U.K. with a sentence of only community service while two men convicted of anti-immigrant or racist activities got jail time? No, that's not true: The man pictured in the rape case was a 15-year-old member of a gang led by other defendants who together were sentenced to over 36 years in prison for the rape. He was not convicted of the rape like the others but of sexual assault and received a suspended prison term on top of community service.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on August 6, 2024. It began:
This is what's happening in the UK right now.
The post showed a composite image of three men. It continued:
POSTED RACIST COMMENT ON FACEBOOK -- 15 WEEKS JAIL
SOLD ANTI IMMIGRATION STICKERS -- 24 MONTHS PRISON
REPEATEDLY R*PED 12 YEAR OLD GIRL -- 180 COMMUNITY HOURS, NO PRISON TIME.
This is what it looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Aug 6 16:14:27 2024 UTC)
The earliest version of the composite image first appeared online on March 11, 2024, when it was simultaneously published on three websites populated by various memes: MemeDroid (archived here), iFunny (archived here) and Reddit (archived here). Those entries contained the names of the men: Shaun Tuck, Sam Melia and Hamoud Al Soaimi.
The picture implied that the third male with a darker skin tone and an Arabic-sounding name raped a child and was only sentenced to 180 hours of community service in the U.K., while the first two white men seen in the composite image were sent behind bars for posting racist comments and distributing anti-immigrant stickers.
Those posts, however, didn't include important details of the cases.
Hamoud Al Soaimi
Al Soaimi, 21 during the trial and 15 at the time of committing crimes (archived here), was a co-defendant in a larger case of a gang whose members' total sentences exceeded 36 years, according to the spring 2024 police press release (archived here) that summarized the outcome of the child sexual exploitation case involving two victims between 12 and 14.
It addressed Al Soaimi's sentencing, too:
Co-accused Hamoud Al-Soaimi, 21, of Byker, was convicted of three counts of sexual assault and assaulting a child under 13 by penetration and given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years.
He was also made subject of a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order, handed a lifetime restraining order while he will remain on the Sex Offenders' Register 10 years.
Although suspended sentence (archived here) does mean that the term is served in the community, not in prison, in this case, it was a result of a real criminal conviction of sexual assault. Furthermore, if an offender does not comply with the specific requirements, they can be sent to prison, too.
The existing sentencing guidelines (archived here) explain the difference between rape and assault-by-penetration charges and include additional factors a judge may consider:
- The age and understanding of the offender. This may include whether the offender has been subjected to any exploitation, coercion, threat, deception, grooming or manipulation by another which has led him or her to commit the offence;
- The relevant ages and levels of maturity of the parties, i.e. the same or no significant disparity in age ...
Around 42,000 offenders (archived here) -- roughly 4 percent of those sentenced -- received a suspended sentence in 2022 alone. As reported by the Guardian (archived here), among those charged with the sexual assault of a person under 13 in the U.K., roughly 30 percent receive a punishment that does not involve imprisonment.
Shaun Tuck
Tuck (archived here), 37 at the time of sentencing in 2024, published abusive comments on football (soccer) team Everton's official Facebook page. He was found guilty of malicious communication, banned from attending football games for six years and was ordered to pay a 155 pound ($197) victim surcharge.
Sam Melia
Melia (archived here) -- seen in the middle of the composite image that is the focus of this fact check -- was 34 in March 2024 when he was found guilty in connection with a series of incidents occurring between 2019 and 2021. However, the charge he was convicted on was not selling anti-immigrant stickers -- it was "inciting racial hatred." During the search, investigations also found a poster of Hitler in his garage. In his bedroom, there was a book by a person who founded the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s. The judge pointed out the anti-semitic attitudes of the defendant and said, as cited by the BBC:
For the first time since the 1930s, a real risk of gross, potentially violent, antisemitism is becoming normalised on our streets ... It must not be allowed to do so again.
Melia was sentenced to two years in prison.
Further reading
Other Lead Stories fact checks about the U.K. are here. Stories about Europe and the European Union are here.
