Wadkin & Anor v R.

Schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 supplies sentencing guidance, not a mechanical classification exercise. Its listed categories are ordinarily indicative and are not closed. A court may find a murder particularly serious under paragraph 5 by evaluating all its circumstances, without treating brutality as a separate technical category.

A whole life order remains reserved for the few exceptionally serious cases in which aggravation and mitigation show that just punishment and retribution require it. A guilty plea is material but does not preclude such an order. A previous murder conviction normally makes a whole life order the starting point, though it does not create an automatic two-strikes rule.

The appellants, serving prisoners at HMP Swaleside, killed another prisoner in Wadkin’s cell. The victim suffered 190 puncture wounds and evidence indicated strangulation. Gomez pleaded guilty to murder shortly before trial. Wadkin was convicted of murder by a jury.

At the Crown Court at Maidstone, HHJ Statman imposed life sentences. He fixed Wadkin’s minimum term at 30 years under section 269(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and made a whole life order against Gomez. Wadkin had not previously committed murder. Gomez had committed a previous murder and was already serving a life sentence for it.

Both appellants appealed against sentence. The central issues were whether Wadkin’s murder was particularly serious within paragraph 5 of Schedule 21, and whether Gomez’s guilty plea should have prevented a whole life order.

1. Both appeals were dismissed. The sentencing judge was entitled to impose a 30-year minimum term on Wadkin and a whole life order on Gomez.

2. Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 is guidance requiring an evaluative assessment of the particular case. It does not create a sentencing straitjacket or permit a mechanical allocation of cases into categories. A whole life order is reserved for the few exceptionally serious murders where, after aggravation and mitigation are considered, just punishment and retribution require lifelong imprisonment.

3. Wadkin’s offence could properly fall within paragraph 5. The categories listed in paragraph 5(2) are not exhaustive. The judge did not create a technical category of a “brutal” murder. He used that word as an assessment of the offence’s seriousness. On the evidence, including the planned killing in Wadkin’s cell and the sustained attack, he was entitled to find the case particularly serious and to set a 30-year minimum term. The increase from a 15-year starting point was not unlawful merely because it was substantial; a starting point is not a finishing point.

4. For Gomez, paragraph 4(2)(d) normally pointed to a whole life order because he had previously been convicted of murder. That was a crucial statutory distinction from Wadkin’s position. The provision did not impose an automatic two-strikes rule, but the judge would have erred by failing to treat the previous murder as a powerful consideration.

5. Gomez’s guilty plea had to be considered and was considered. It did not, as a matter of principle, bar a whole life order. Given the planned and exceptionally violent second murder in prison, Gomez’s prior murder conviction, and the requirements of retribution and deterrence, the judge was entitled to conclude that the plea did not justify a finite minimum term.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — in [2016] EWCA Crim 1047, dismissed both appeals against sentence.
• Crown Court at Maidstone — HHJ Statman sentenced both appellants to life imprisonment following Gomez’s guilty plea and Wadkin’s conviction for murder; he imposed a whole life order on Gomez and a 30-year minimum term on Wadkin.