Healy, R. v

A sentencing judge determining the minimum term for murder may make factual findings from the trial evidence. A separate count or jury verdict for robbery is not required before the judge can find that the murder was done for gain for the purposes of Criminal Justice Act 2003, Schedule 21.

A murder for gain will normally attract the 30-year starting point, but it does not do so automatically. The judge must decide whether the particular murder is of particularly high seriousness. Detailed aggravating and mitigating factors may justify a minimum term of any length, regardless of the selected starting point.

The appellant was convicted of murder at Winchester Crown Court after fatally stabbing the deceased in his home. The sentencing judge imposed life imprisonment and set a minimum term of 22 years, less time spent on remand.

The judge found from the trial evidence that the appellant had taken a knife into the bedroom to obtain money. He therefore treated the killing as a murder for gain and adopted the 30-year starting point under Schedule 21. The appeal challenged whether that finding could be made without a robbery count on the indictment or a jury verdict of robbery.

1. Appeal allowed to a limited extent. The court reduced the minimum term from 22 years to 20 years, with credit for time spent in custody before sentence.

2. The sentencing judge was entitled to find, on the evidence heard at trial, that the murder was done for gain. He was sentencing the appellant for murder, not imposing sentence for an uncharged robbery. The expression murder done for gain in paragraph 5(2)(c) of Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 is not confined to cases where robbery has been charged and proved as a separate offence. Attorney General's Reference No 7 of 2006 (Mcafee and another), [2006] 2 Cr App R(S) 112, did not assist the appellant because its difficulty concerned uncertainty as to which of two offenders had set a fire and with what mental element.

3. The judge was also entitled to select the 30-year starting point. Paragraph 5(2) identifies cases which would normally fall within the category of particularly high seriousness. It does not make every murder for gain a 30-year case. Although other judges might have taken the 15-year starting point on these facts, the selection of 30 years was not wrong in principle.

4. Under paragraph 9, detailed consideration of aggravating and mitigating matters can produce a minimum term of any length irrespective of the starting point. The court reviewed the limited premeditation, the paltry gain, the victim's vulnerability, and the limited weight to be given to an absence of intent to kill where deliberately inflicted injury was likely to cause death. The resulting 22-year term was slightly excessive and was reduced to 20 years.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed the appeal to the limited extent of reducing the minimum term to 20 years: [2008] EWCA Crim 2583.

• Crown Court at Winchester: On 11 June 2008 the appellant was convicted of murder. On 12 June 2008, Judge Boney QC imposed life imprisonment and set a minimum term of 22 years less 195 days spent on remand.