Lord Advocate asks for new tougher sentencing guidelines for murder

Published on Tuesday 8 September 2009 20:41

MURDERERS in Scotland face heavier sentences – the worst killers receiving "life to mean life" – if appeal judges heed a call by the Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, QC.

The country's senior prosecutor complained that a sentencing scale for murder of 12 to 30 years in jail was too compressed and inadequate for exceptional cases, such as terrorism or repeated sexual violence.

She said a period which exceeded the natural life expectancy of the offender "may be appropriate."

Mrs Angiolini highlighted Scotland's unwanted title of the homicide capital of the UK, and made specific mention of knife crime. The lives of innocent strangers or passers-by were often seen by assailants as "a cheap commodity", she said

Five judges in the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, headed by Lord Hamilton, the Lord Justice-General, are being asked by Mrs Angiolini to issue new and tougher sentencing guidelines for murder cases. The hearing is due to last a number of days, and the court's decision will be given later.

The Lord Advocate is using two specific cases to make her pitch for a fresh approach to sentencing.

She contends unduly lenient sentences were given to Robert Kelly, 34 – jailed for at least 15 years for strangling a grandmother and hiding her body under floorboards in a flat in Glasgow – and to Bryan Boyle, 21, and Greig Maddock, 23, who received minimum terms of 15 and 12 years for the murder of a man who was set on fire in Dunfermline, Fife.

Anyone convicted of murder in Scotland receives a mandatory life sentence. Judges also have to impose a "punishment part" – the period which must be served before an application can be made for parole.

In a benchmark judgment in 2002, the appeal court reduced from 30 to 27 years the punishment part imposed on Andrew Walker, a former Royal Scots corporal who had shot dead three people in an army payroll robbery.

Following that ruling, judges used 12 years as the "norm" in murder cases, going up or down depending on the aggravating or mitigating features.

Mrs Angiolini said the Walker judgment had led to a "relatively compressed" scale for punishment parts of 12 to 30 years.

In England and Wales, the starting point was 15 years, and that system appeared to result in significantly higher punishment parts.

Referring to the Scottish scale, she stated: "It is inadequate to reflect the wide range of conduct which may amount to murder, and fails to reflect adequately the exceptionally serious cases of murder, particularly those involving multiple victims, terrorism, or persistent sexual violence against vulnerable adults or children."

Mrs Angiolini added: "I ask the court to consider issuing a guidance opinion (judgment] that will recognise 30 years is not the absolute maximum punishment part, and recognises explicitly that in some exceptional cases a punishment part that will exceed the natural life expectancy of the accused may be appropriate.

"If the court is with me, I would ask you to give consideration to identifying, within an expanded and increased scale, appropriate starting points for general categories of murderous conduct which may be aggravated or mitigated according to the circumstances of the offence and/or the offender."

Mrs Angiolini said she recognised that no guidance could be comprehensive, and that any inflexible system had the potential to produce injustice.

Case studies

Victim set on fire after drunken beating

BRYAN Boyle, 18, and Greig Maddock, 21, were sentenced to at least 15 years and 12 years respectively for killing father-of-two Brian Bowie.

They attacked Mr Bowie, 35, with a bottle and a knife, kicked him and stamped on him. Then they dragged him from a flat in Dunfermline, doused him with lighter fuel and set him on fire.

Mr Bowie was to have attended his brother's 40th birthday party on 14 October 2006 but met Boyle and went to his flat, where they drank heavily before the attack.

Mr Bowie died five days later in hospital. Both attackers were on probation at the time of the incident.

Pensioner's body hidden for four years

ROBERT Kelly, 34, was jailed for 15 years for choking pensioner Agnes "Nessa" Mechen to death for 340 and then hiding her body under his floorboards for four years. Kelly, of Govanhill, Glasgow, was found out when his girlfriend told the police.

Mrs Mechen, 64, had called on him in 2002 to collect Provident cheques before Kelly leapt on her and throttled her with flex. Her body was only discovered in January 2007.

The court heard that on the day before the murder, Kelly told his partner he was going to mug Mrs Mechen. Then on the day of the murder, he told her he was going to kill Mrs Mechen and showed her the cord he would use to strangle the victim, describing how he would bury the body under the floorboards. Later that evening, he told his partner: "I did it."