Minimum terms
High Court setting of minimum terms for mandatory life sentences under the Criminal Justice Act 2003
Neutral Citation Number: [2007]EWHC 750 (QB)
Case No: 2004/606/MTS
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Date: 27/04/2007
Before :
MR JUSTICE WILKIE
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Between :
REGINA
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MUSTAQ AHMED Defendant
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Setting of minimum term schedule 22 para 3 of Criminal Justice Act 2003
Trial Date 7 October 2003
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Approved Judgment
I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic
MR JUSTICE WILKIE
Mr Justice Wilkie :
1. The Secretary of State has, pursuant to paragraph 6 of Schedule 22 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (the 2003 Act), referred the case of this offender to the High Court for it to make an order under sub-section (2) or (4) of section 269 of the 2003 Act concerning the minimum term to be served before any question of the offender's release on licence can be considered. The Court is required to make an order which it considers appropriate taking into account the seriousness of the offence and the effect of any direction which it would have given under section 240 of the 2003 Act (crediting period of remand in custody) if it had sentenced him to a period of imprisonment. In considering the question of seriousness, regard has to be given to the general principles set out in Schedule 21 of the 2003 Act. Furthermore, by virtue of paragraph 7 of Schedule 22 of the 2003 Act the Court, in considering the seriousness of the offence, has to have regard to any recommendation made to the Secretary of State by the trial judge or the Lord Chief Justice and, by virtue paragraph 8 of Schedule 22, the Court may not make an order for a minimum term longer than that which, under the practice followed by the Secretary of State before December 2002, the Secretary of State would have been likely to notify pursuant to paragraph 2(a) of Schedule 22. Furthermore, in order to comply with that paragraph and with Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights the Court has to have regard to the guidance issued by respective Lord Chief Justices. The relevant letter is contained in the letter of Lord Bingham of Cornhill CJ dated 20 February 1997 and Practice Statement (Juveniles: Murder Tariff (2000 1 WLR 1655).
2. On 7 October 2003 at the Central Criminal Court the offender, born on 1 August 1963, was found guilty of murder by a majority of 11-1. The offence was committed between the 14th and 18th of November 2002 and the victim was Rexhep Hasani. The trial judge, on 7 October 2003, sentenced the offender to life imprisonment. On 10 October 2003 the trial judge recommended in his report to the Home Secretary a tariff of 16 years. No tariff was recommended by the Lord Chief Justice.
3. The brief facts of the matter were that the offender murdered the 22 year old lover of the offender's 16 year old daughter. The offender is a devout Muslim of good character. He disapproved of his daughter's relationship with the deceased who was a Christian Albanian asylum seeker. His application to gain entry to the UK was refused in 1998 but he had remained in the UK ever since. The trial judge concluded that the offender had employed the deceased in order to ensure a degree of control over him and his relationship with his daughter. He decided, however, that as the two would not part he would kill the deceased. Possibly with the assistance of one other, he disabled the deceased in the offender's factory, trussed him up with electrical flex and then asphyxiated him by applying polythene to his mouth. This occurred at approximately 8pm on Friday 15 November 2002. The offender returned at 9.30pm to check that he was dead. On the following day, 16 November, having ensured no one else was in the factory he tied up the body in tarpaulin taken from his factory roof, tied it with material from the factory and dumped it in an area of E15 having satisfied himself that no CCTV camera operated there. He divested the body of all form of identification. Thereafter its identity was discovered from some fingerprints upon his 1998 asylum application.
4. The offender then made a lying witness statement to the police saying that he knew nothing of the death. He also persuaded four of his workers to lie saying that the deceased had never worked in the factory. The offender had told one of his employees that he wished to teach the deceased a lesson.
5. The judge identified a number of aggravating features namely a premeditated intent to kill, the use of polythene to asphyxiate, concealment of the body and concocting a spurious defence that he had tied up the deceased to teach him a lesson overnight and that by the following morning the deceased had rolled into polythene causing him to be asphyxiated.
6. The trial judge identified the following mitigating features. The fact that the offender was a man of previous good character and his understandable disapproval of his daughter's relationship with the deceased. Taking all these matters into account he recommended a tariff of 16 years.
7. I have received, and have considered, a statement from the father of the deceased. I have also received a statement from the offender dated 21 June 2004 and written representations on his behalf dated 21 June 2004 made by Norman H. Barnett and Co his solicitors.
8. My first task is to assess the seriousness of the offence by reference to schedule 21. I agree with the offender's solicitors that the appropriate starting point is 15 years. Having regard to the aggravating features identified by the judge and the mitigating features identified by him, and giving such credence as I can to the statement of the offender, having regard to his initial lying statement to the police and the fact that he failed to give evidence at the trial, in my judgment the appropriate term reflecting the seriousness of the offence together with the mitigating factors would be one of 18 years. I must, however, check to make sure that a term of 18 years would be no more than the term which the Secretary of State was likely to have notified pursuant to his practice prior to December 2002. I agree with the contention made on behalf of the offender that it is likely that the Secretary of State would have notified a minimum term of no more than the 16 years which the trial judge recommended. Accordingly, because this is a transitional case, I am constrained to impose a minimum term of no more than 16 years. In addition, there falls to be deducted from that minimum term the period of time spent in custody on remand which in this case is 10 months.
9. Accordingly the minimum term I fix is one of 16 years less 10 months.