Minimum terms
High Court setting of minimum terms for mandatory life sentences under the Criminal Justice Act 2003
Neutral Citation Number:
2006 EWHC 437 QB
Case No: 2004/96/MTS
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
Date:
Before:
THE HON. MR. JUSTICE MCKINNON
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Criminal Justice Act, 2003, Schedule 22
Judge’s Order under Section 269
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R E G I N A
-v-
JANE DAWN ANDREWS
McKinnon, J :
D EC I S I O N
1. I am required by section 269 (3) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to set such minimum term as I consider appropriate taking into account the seriousness of the offence. In arriving at that minimum term, there are four steps which I am required to take as the murder here was committed before 18th December 2003.
2. The facts are taken from the report of the trial judge, The Recorder of London, to the Home Secretary. The defendant attacked her boyfriend Thomas Cressman in their bedroom late at night on 16th/17th September 2000. She hit him on the head with a cricket bat while he was probably kneeling on the bed after being woken and then stabbed him in the chest with a large kitchen knife. She then left the room, washed herself and left the house. She then drove, eventually, to the West Country. Over the next three or four days, she was in touch with some of her friends. She was pretending that when she had left the house he was alive and well. She was arrested on 20th September. She had taken, she said, 40 Neurofen tablets. She was in hospital from 20th – 22nd September and was interviewed by police on 23rd September. In essence she said then and at trial that Cressman had attacked her and in self defence she had hit him with the bat: he had continued his attack none-the-less and in the course of trying to get at her, he had fallen on the knife which she was holding in order to defend herself. The main defence, therefore, was self-defence combined with accident. This defence notably did not explain why she did not call for an ambulance, as she would surely have done had it been an accident. She sought to add substance to her defence of self-defence by asserting in the morning preceding the killing, after a row, Cressman had anally raped her, and had made a suggestion of doing so again in the evening shortly before the killing. It was said that that rape was particularly obnoxious to her as she had been sexually abused as a child. The background to the defendant’s attack on Cressman was that they had a sexual relationship over a period of about two years. It was on the evidence mainly happy, but subject to a number of bitter rows. The essential contention between them was that while she wanted to marry him, he did not want to commit himself. He was a wealthy man and liked his freedom to do as he pleased. Earlier in September the evidence established that the defendant and Cressman had spent what was described as an idyllic holiday together on his boat in Italy. Before they had gone away they had been looking in the Cotswolds for a house to buy for themselves. It was apparent that the defendant had every expectation that at the end of the holiday Cressman would propose marriage to her. In fact at the end of the holiday he told her that the relationship should end and that he would not marry her. It was evident that the attack she made on him was made as a result of bitter resentment and anger when she saw her ambition to marry him finally frustrated.
3. The first step is to choose one of three starting points, whole life, 30 years or 15 years. In my judgment, it is appropriate to take the starting point of 15 years. That is because this case falls within the category of an offence, the seriousness of which is neither exceptionally high nor particularly high within paragraphs 4 (1) or 5 (2) of Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
4. The second step is to take account of any aggravating or mitigating factors which would justify the departure from the starting point of 15 years. The aggravating features are that the attack was made on an unarmed man and in circumstances where the defendant had evidently decided to stun him with the bat before stabbing him with the knife and it was a ruthless attack as was shown by her failure to try and get help. I would not increase the starting point by reason of those matters in this case. The mitigating factors were that the defendant was emotionally shattered by her victim’s rejection of her, it was unlikely that she decided on the attack more than a few minutes before carrying it out and her mental condition was such that the contemplation of what she had done was an unusually heavy burden to bear. I would deduct a period in the region of three years in respect of those matters to arrive at a starting point in the region of 12 years.
5. The third step is to deduct from the starting point of a figure in the region of 12 years the precise time that the defendant spent on remand in custody. That is 2 months and 16 days. So, in broad terms, (not being entirely precise) I arrive at a proposed minimum term of 12 years.
6. The fourth step is to check whether that proposed term is greater than the term which the Secretary of State would probably have notified under the practice followed by the Secretary of State before December 2002. Where, as here, the murder was committed before 31st May 2002, the best guide as to what would have been the practice of the Secretary of State is the letter sent to judges by Lord Bingham, CJ on 10th February 1997. Following the practice of Lord Bingham, I take as the first step the period actually to be served for the “average”, “normal” or “unexceptional” murder as 14 years. The next and final step is to look at the factors capable of mitigating the normal penalty and the factors likely to call for a sentence more severe than the norm. Here, the aggravating and mitigating factors are as set out in paragraph 4 above, thus arriving at a figure in the region of 11 years.
7. I have considered the recommendation made by The Recorder of London and Lord Woolf, C.J. of 12 years. It seems to me that those recommendations are well founded and should be adopted. Accordingly, I set the minimum term that the defendant must serve before Parole Board can consider her release on licence as one of 12 years. That minimum term is the minimum amount of time the defendant will spend in prison, from the date of sentence, before the Parole Board can order early release. If it remains necessary for the protection of the public, the defendant will continue to be detained after that date. Where the defendant has served the minimum term and the Parole Board has decided to direct release, the defendant will remain on licence for the rest of his life and may be recalled to prison at any time.