R v Romain Lapierre

In reviewing a minimum term for murder, the appellate court may uphold a finding of intention to kill where it is supported by the nature and extent of the injuries and the circumstances of a co-ordinated attack. A majority verdict and different verdicts returned against co-defendants do not diminish the evidential basis for the individual offender’s sentence.

Youth, a troubled upbringing and neurodevelopmental conditions may mitigate sentence, but their weight depends on the offender’s maturity and the sentencing judge’s assessment. A minimum term increased for planning, brutality, a connected armed robbery and relevant antecedents was not manifestly excessive.

The applicant sought renewed leave to appeal against sentence following his conviction at the Central Criminal Court for murder and robbery. On 2 December 2022, the trial judge imposed life imprisonment with a minimum term of 28 years, less time on remand, and a concurrent nine-year detention sentence for robbery.

The offences formed a sequence in which the applicant participated in a knife-point robbery before joining a planned, armed attack on the murder victim in the victim’s home. The applicant inflicted the fatal stab wound. He challenged the sentence on the grounds that the judge wrongly found an intention to kill, gave insufficient weight to mitigation arising from age and background, and failed properly to apply totality.

1. The renewed application for leave to appeal against sentence was refused. The court agreed with the single judge that the 28-year minimum term was not manifestly excessive, even arguably.

2. The trial judge was entitled to find that the applicant intended to kill. The nature and extent of the fatal injury, together with the circumstances of the attack, provided ample evidence for that conclusion. The pathologist’s description of at least moderate force did not undermine the judge’s description of the force as considerable. The majority verdict and the verdicts concerning other defendants did not affect the applicant’s conviction or the sentencing assessment.

3. An uplift from the 25-year starting point was plainly justified. The murder was planned and co-ordinated, involved armed and masked offenders, took place in the victim’s home and in his mother’s presence, and was sustained and brutal. The preceding knife-point robbery was serious aggravation and formed part of the sequence culminating in the murder. The applicant’s relevant antecedents also aggravated sentence.

4. The court accepted that the applicant’s youth, difficult upbringing, care history, ADHD and ODD were mitigating circumstances. However, the trial judge was entitled to find that he was mature for his age and to give those matters relatively limited weight. There was no failure to take account of mitigation or totality.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): renewed application for leave to appeal against sentence refused in [2023] EWCA Crim 1543.
• Central Criminal Court: on 2 December 2022, the applicant was sentenced for murder and robbery to life imprisonment with a 28-year minimum term and a concurrent nine-year detention sentence for robbery.