I have numbered this title because in my daily trawl through the BBC News sites which I undertake in order to keep track of the murder rate in this, 'our septic Isle', I come across stories that leave one - and here I use deliberately a marvellous piece of street argot - gobsmacked! My e-friends 'Ratty' and 'Not Saussure' seek to comfort me by telling me, in so many words, that 'all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds' as far as our legal system is concerned, and that I am making a great fuss about nothing. But then you read a story like this, in which a man released after only six years for killing his best friend(?) by battering him to death, then proceeds to do exactly the same to another man, Mr. Gurdev Singh. This time he is given an "indeterminate sentence" but may be released after only three and a half years!
I can only ask, despairingly, where was the protection that the unfortunate Mr. Gurdev Singh was entitled to, and more to the point, where will be the protection for the rest of us when this brutal killer is out on the streets in three and half years? "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", now where did I hear that, no, don't tell me, it'll come back to me in a minute ...
Without knowing the details of the case -- and, in particular, why it was manslaughter and not murder -- it's impossible to say. It would, for example, be manslaughter if he'd punched his friend on the nose, without any intention of doing him serious injury, and his friend had then staggered backwards, tripped over something and staved in his head on a rock on the ground.
Off the top of my head, a determinate sentence of 7 years (i.e. eligible for release on licence three-and-a-half years) is pretty standard for manslaughter by reason of provocation (which is quite a difficult defence to bring off, I'm told).
Because of his record, he's rightly been given an indefinite sentence for public protection rather than a determinate sentence. When a judge awards an IPP he must, under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, make a recommendation about the minimum time the prisoner must serve before he may apply for release on licence. This the judge must calculate by deciding the determinate sentence he would have been minded to impose were he not imposing an IPP and calculating the parole date from that.
There's no particular reason to suppose the chap will be released after 3 and a half years; the sentence would better expressed in American terms, 'three-and-a-half years to life'.
If it's any consolation, judges don't much like this part of the CJA 2003, either. However, Parliament decided it knew more about sentencing than did the judges and passed the relevant sections of the CJA to tell them exactly how to do this aspect of their job.
Posted by: Not Saussure | Tuesday, 05 June 2007 at 11:54
I appreciate the trouble you took to comment expertly on this matter, 'NS', and I admit that neither of us knows the details of the case. However, you can understand my bewilderment that some one who batters their 'best friend' to death is only charged with manslaughter and then only receives a six year sentence. I am also, if you will allow me to climb on board my bandwagon, deeply in sympathy with Mr. Singh's family who have had a relative slaughtered because the murderer was not strung up, or at least kept in jail for life, in the first place! I do not share your confidence that this killer will not be out in time get his hat-trick!
Again, I cannot stress enough that the state has a duty to protect its people, a duty that is manifestly ignored by parliament and the judiciary. It isn't just the Home Office that is "unfit for purpose".
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 05 June 2007 at 12:17