"We agree that Xu should be sentenced to at least 10 years. He didn't mean to surrender. He had been hiding for almost 10 days before turning himself in. He just had no other choice," Li's mother said.

The mother said her daughter's emotional state has been unstable since the incident. Li has problems sleeping and cries frequently.

"We just hope to keep her by our side now. Her health is not good. We're afraid she might get herself into troubles," she said.

Li's mother said the family has spent all its money on the case and has not received the compensation handed down in the verdict.

"Now we don't have any money. We hope to go to Beijing again to sue the hotel and our local liaison office there, but we have to save money first," the mother added.

She also said Li was planning on getting married before the incident.

"But now the boy's family is not talking about (marriage) anymore."

Li has claimed that after she arrived in Beijing, officials from her hometown confronted her outside the bureau and took her to the hotel.

Critics claimed that Xu and the other guards were trying to force the petitioners to leave the capital without delivering their various petitions.

Li reported the rape at a police station on Aug 4 and Xu soon fled to his hometown in Henan province, where he turned himself in a week later.