Vinter, R v

For a second murder, paragraph 4 of Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 normally makes a whole life order the starting point because the offence is of exceptionally high seriousness. The Schedule is not to be applied mechanically and does not create sentencing tramlines. The court must assess the seriousness of the particular murder and the offender.

Future dangerousness is addressed by the life sentence itself. The minimum term, including a whole life order, serves punishment and deterrence. Where the facts disclose a sustained intention to kill, following a kidnapping, and there is no mitigating basis to depart from the normal approach to a second murder, a whole life order is appropriate.

The appellant pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court to murdering his wife while he was on licence following an earlier life sentence for murder. The Recorder imposed the mandatory life sentence and specified a whole life term.

He appealed against sentence. He contended that the Recorder had wrongly based the whole life term on his future dangerousness, rather than on punishment and deterrence, and had therefore imposed an inappropriate order. The central issue was whether, on a proper assessment of the seriousness of this second murder under paragraph 4 of Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a whole life order was justified.

1. Appeal dismissed. Although the Recorder had focused his brief sentencing remarks on the appellant’s future dangerousness, the Court of Appeal reconsidered the proper sentence by reference to the seriousness of the murder.

2. Dangerousness is addressed by the mandatory life sentence. The minimum term, and therefore a whole life order, concerns the punishment and deterrence required for the instant offence.

3. Paragraph 4 of Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 placed a murder committed by an offender previously convicted of murder within the category of exceptionally high seriousness. A whole life order was normally the starting point. The Schedule was not, however, to be applied mechanically: it indicated normal parameters rather than fixed sentencing tramlines, and the sentence had to be tailored to the offence and offender.

4. The facts gave no reason to depart from that normal approach. The murder followed conduct amounting to a kidnapping. The appellant prevented the victim’s daughter from protecting her, used the victim to mislead the police, and maintained an intention to kill. He attempted strangulation and, when that failed, used knives to inflict fatal stab wounds. Allowing for the guilty plea, the proper period for punishment and deterrence was a whole life term.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Appeal against sentence dismissed; the whole life term imposed for murder was upheld.
• Crown Court at Teesside: Following a guilty plea to murder, the Recorder imposed life imprisonment with a whole life term.