This petition was submitted during the 2015-2017 parliament
Rejected petition Challenge the non custodial sentence of Patrick Rock for Child abuse images
We believe that the sentencing of Patrick Rock, former advisor to David Cameron, to a 2 year conditional discharge is an insult to the child victims of the abusive, indecent images he downloaded. The children were young, underage girls and the images were of them in 'sexualised poses'.
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In his role as Deputy Head of the Home Affairs policy unit he held responsibility for co-ordination of the government response to the problem of abusive images of children on the internet.
We believe that the Judge Alistair McCreath's comment that Rock's punishment was, "the loss of your reputation and your very public humiliation', indicates a preferential approach to the sentencing of child sex offenders seemingly dependent on their social status and privilege. We demand that his sentence be reviewed and increased to reflect the impact on the victims and the fact that he brought into disrepute his position of trust and responsibility in relation to his specialist role in government.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.
Sentences are the responsibility of the courts, which are independent of the Government and Parliament.
Anyone can ask the Attorney General to review a sentence they think is too low, and only one person needs to ask for a sentence to be reviewed. You can find out how to do that here:
https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-low-crown-court-sentence
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.