In 2009, the gang responsible for the attacks was finally caught after one break-in went badly wrong. According to Vice, two of the attackers were caught in the act, and they gave up the names of the rest of the culprits — nine in total. The men were confined in basements and sheds, and the police were eventually called to prevent the furious men in the town from lynching the attackers.
When they were initially caught, the group admitted to drugging the women and committing the rapes. According to The Guardian, one man, Peter Kennell, admitted, “I raped about 23 women … I cannot say why, but after the first time it became a habit and I used to do it twice a week.” The seriousness of the charges did not seem to affect the defendants, who were disciplined on more than one occasion at the trial for not taking it seriously.
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By the time they were up for prosecution, the group had begun to claim that they had been coerced into confessing by an angry mob. The BBC reports that the accused men later spun out a story that they were framed simply for being widely disliked in the town. The acting prosecutor, Fredy Perez, responded to these allegations by pointing out that the written confessions of the rapists lined up too neatly with the physical evidence to be works of fiction. In any case, their later denials did not save them — all nine men were convicted and given 25-year-long sentences.
