R v KGS

Under Sentencing Act 2020, Schedule 21 provides a broad framework for fixing a murder minimum term. The court must assess the particular offending and offender, rather than apply starting points mechanically. Detailed aggravating and mitigating features may justify a term of any length.

Where two independent features each normally justify a 30-year starting point, treating both features as aggravating is not impermissible double-counting. An allegation of an intention to interfere with the course of justice cannot be advanced for the first time on a lenient-sentence reference where it depends on a disputed fact and would be unfair. Although intention is subjective, the foreseeable interference actually caused may aggravate the harm.

The offender pleaded guilty to two murders after shooting his daughter’s former partner and the partner’s father at their respective homes. The killings followed an interim Family Court decision concerning the offender’s grandson. The sentencing judge imposed concurrent life sentences with a 25-year minimum term, less 206 days on remand.

His Majesty’s Solicitor General sought leave under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 to refer the sentences as unduly lenient. The principal issues were the correct application of Schedule 21 to two planned firearm murders, whether an unraised allegation of intended interference with the course of justice could be relied on, and the proper balance of aggravation and mitigation.

1. The reference was allowed. The 25-year minimum term was unduly lenient. The court substituted concurrent life sentences with a minimum term of 30 years, less 206 days spent on remand.

2. Schedule 21 of the Sentencing Act 2020 supplies broad starting points, not a mechanical tariff. The sentencing court must have regard to the particular facts and may take aggravating and mitigating features into account both when selecting a starting point and when adjusting it. Applying R v Jones [2005] EWCA Crim 3115, the court stressed that detailed consideration may produce a minimum term of any length.

3. The Solicitor General could not advance, for the first time, the allegation that the murders were intended to obstruct or interfere with the course of justice. Unlike a dispute about the evaluative categorisation of agreed facts, that allegation depended on a disputed factual inference. It would have required a Newton hearing and was unfair to introduce on the reference. The evidence did not establish the requisite subjective intention.

4. Nevertheless, the murders foreseeably ended the Family Court dispute and prevented consideration of the child’s future contact with his father. That serious interference with the administration of justice aggravated the harm, although it did not increase culpability through an unproved intention.

5. The judge erred in treating the double murder and the use of a firearm as already exhausted by the 30-year starting point. Each was independently identified by paragraph 3 of Schedule 21 as ordinarily warranting that starting point. On these facts, a significant upward adjustment was required. Separate incidents, planning, firearms, killing the victims at home, and the intended deprivation of a child’s father were substantial aggravating features. Age, good character, stress and qualified remorse carried limited mitigation. Applying R v Stewart and others [2022] EWCA Crim 1063, the case did not approach the whole-life threshold, but required at least 35 years after trial and at least 30 years after plea credit.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): granted leave under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, held the Crown Court minimum term unduly lenient, and substituted a 30-year minimum term less 206 days: [2024] EWCA Crim 85.
• Crown Court at Cambridge: on 23 October 2023, imposed concurrent life sentences for two murders with a minimum term of 25 years, less 206 days on remand.