The Crown has appealed the nine-month home detention sentence handed to 18-year-old Jayden Meyer, who raped four girls and sexually violated another when they were all 15.

Deputy solicitor-general Madeleine Laracy filed the appeal, which crown solicitor Anna Pollett said is 'usual” in Crown appeals against sentences.

The appeal is scheduled for a nominal date of October 22 in Rotorua High Court, an officer of the court confirmed to Stuff.

Pollett was the crown prosecutor in the case against Meyer, who was originally sentenced in Tauranga in July by Judge Christopher Harding.

Public outrage following the perceived leniency of the sentence sparked a series of protests in September across Aotearoa in Mount Maunganui, Hamilton, Whanganui, Gisborne and Taupō.

A statement released to media on behalf of the victims highlighted the 'horrors” of both Meyer's actions and the mental strain of enduring a drawn-out court process.

"Life doesn't prepare you for the horrors other's actions can inflict,” read the statement. 'Nor does it prepare you for the mental strain 16 months through the courts can cause.

'This boy's actions have caused a lifetime of trauma and hurt. It requires strength and bravery to stand up against one who once made you feel so small and vulnerable.”

The organiser of the protest in Mount Maunganui, local barber Spencer McNeil, 18, told Stuff people were angry about the 'disgusting” sentence, and claimed there had been 'no justice”.

McNeil knew both the perpetrator of the crimes and the victims.

Sexual violence prevention educator and activist Rachel Taane, wife of musician Tiki Taane, said light sentences of home detention deter young victims of sexual violence from reporting the crime.

'There's a sense that when the male perpetrator is young, the emphasis is all on him, not his victims, and that prison ‘would ruin his life',” she said. 'What about the lives he has already ruined?

'There have to be consequences of course, but the answer lies in education about consent and rape and other issues.”

Taane said judges need auditing to ensure they are not letting their own cultural views influence sentencing, and that there needed to be much more education about consent and rape.

Sexual violence advocate Sarah Strong, 54, told Stuff how she was raped at just 14 by a boy aged 17. 'Although it was 40 years ago, it still feels like yesterday,” she said.

'He was a boy just a few years older than me. I was a virgin. I was too terrified to tell anyone.The shame was so overpowering I sometimes felt like I couldn't do this.”

It was 35 years later, aged 49, that Sarah felt brave enough to report the crime and went to the police in the hope of justice. She was left 'devastated” when police told her there was not enough evidence to take it to court.

'I was crushed all over again,” she said. 'It still makes me cry. There should be gentler, better ways of dealing with victims, and more encouragement for people to come forward about historic abuse.”

-Annemarie Quill/Stuff.