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Court of Appeal backs whole-life sentences (19 February 2014)

Date: 19/02/2014
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Court of Appeal backs whole-life sentences

The Court of Appeal has ruled whole-life sentences are legal and compatible with human rights legislation.

The ruling yesterday (18/02/14) will now have implications for the sentencing of the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby, which is due to take at the Old Bailey in London on Wednesday, 26 February at 2pm.

Lee Rigby’s killers were convicted of his murder in January, but sentencing was deferred until the result of yesterday’s Court of Appeal judgment.

Recently, one of Lee Rigby’s killers, Michael Adebolajo, announced that he would appeal his conviction for the murder of the soldier outside Woolwich Barracks last May.

Some of Britain’s most notorious killers are currently serving whole-life jail terms for murder – including Moors murdered Ian Brady and Mark Bridger, the killer of Welsh schoolgirl April Jones.

Whole-life sentences mean that those convicted of the most serious and brutal crimes spend their lives in jail until they die.

The notorious serial killer Donald Neilson – known as the Black Panther –died from motor neurone disease in December 2011, after spending 35 years in HMP Norwich following his conviction for the murder of the Shropshire heiress, 17-year-old Lesley Whittle in 1976. In 2008, Neilson lost an appeal to have his sentence reduced to 30 years.

Several prisoners currently serving whole-life sentences have recently announced they will appeal their sentences – including Mark Bridger. Bridger later dropped plans to appeal his sentence, however.

Yesterday’s Court of Appeal hearing follows successful appeals to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2013 by three whole-life prisoners – murderers Jeremy Bamber, Peter Moore and Douglas Vinter.

The ECHR ruled that their whole-life jail sentences amounted to “inhuman and degrading treatment". Whole-life sentences do not provide for prisoners to be allowed out of prison on parole or for sentencing reviews.

In some cases, whole-life prisoners can be released if the sentence is quashed, or they are released on compassionate grounds – for example, if they are terminally ill and require palliative care or because of old age. But only the Home Secretary can grant a whole-life prisoner the right of release from their prison sentence.

Whole-life sentences can be set for minimum terms such as 40 years or 50 years. The Conservative Party has recently mooted introducing a jail term of 100 years, however.

Following last year’s successful appeal by three whole-life prisoners, the Grand Chamber of the ECHR at Strasbourg had argued that whole-life prisoners should have the right of review after serving 25 years of a whole-life sentence.

Yesterday, a panel of five leading judged headed by Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas upheld the right of courts in England and Wales to impose whole-life sentences.

The judges ruled that the statutory scheme enacted by Parliament which enabled judges to pass whole-life orders was "entirely compatible" with the European Convention on Human Rights.

Lord Thomas said:

“Judges should therefore continue as they have done to impose whole-life orders in those rare and exceptional cases which fall within the statutory scheme.”

The Court of Appeal accordingly rejected an appeal by child murderer Lee Newell, who had appealed his whole-life sentence from prison – and also increased the minimum 40-year jail sentence to a whole-life term for killer Ian McLoughlin, who murdered a man while out of prison on day release.

After the hearing, the Attorney General Dominic Grieve wrote on Twitter:

“I am pleased CoA [court of appeal] has confirmed those who commit the most heinous crimes can be sent to prison for the rest of their lives.”

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