Wilby, R v

Under Criminal Justice Act 2003 Schedule 21, the 15-year starting point for murder already assumes an intent to kill. That intention cannot therefore, by itself, aggravate the minimum term. The circumstances of the killing and the method used may nevertheless be aggravating features.

When fixing a minimum term, the court must give proper effect to a timely guilty plea and other accepted mitigation. If the resulting term is manifestly excessive, the appellate court may quash it and substitute the appropriate term.

The appellant pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court to murdering his friend. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a 20-year minimum term less time spent on remand.

The judge adopted a 15-year starting point and treated the prolonged and violent knife attack, planning, and suffering inflicted on the deceased as aggravating. The appellant appealed only the specified minimum term. He contended that the judge had wrongly treated his intent to kill as an aggravating feature and had given insufficient credit for his early guilty plea and mitigation.

1. Appeal allowed in part. The court quashed the 20-year minimum term and substituted a term of 18 years, less time spent on remand. The life sentence remained undisturbed.

2. The 15-year starting point under Schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 assumes an intent to kill. An intent to kill is therefore not, without more, an aggravating feature capable of increasing the term from that starting point. The wording of paragraph 11, which identifies an intent to cause serious bodily harm rather than kill as mitigating, confirms that construction.

3. The sentencing judge was nevertheless entitled to treat the circumstances and method of the killing as seriously aggravating. The attack was prolonged and vicious, involved a knife, caused suffering before death, and involved planning through the use of twine and a T-shirt sleeve. Those features did not receive undue weight.

4. The minimum term was nonetheless manifestly excessive. The appellant's young age, early guilty plea, accepted remorse, limited intelligence, depressive illness and impaired responsibility, together with the apparent treatment of intent to kill as aggravating, required a reduction. The appropriate post-trial range was 20 to 22 years. Giving effect to the guilty plea, the proper minimum term was 18 years.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — allowed the appeal against the minimum term and substituted 18 years less time spent on remand.
• Leeds Crown Court — following a guilty plea to murder, imposed life imprisonment and specified a 20-year minimum term less 154 days spent on remand.