COURT OF APPEAL SUCCESS
Swain and Co successfully appeal the last ‘whole life tariff’ for a discretionary life sentence prisoner
On 28 April 2010 the Court of Appeal quashed the only ‘whole life tariff’ being served by a discretionary life sentence prisoner.
The applicant in this case was a Mr Stephen Ayre. In 1985 Mr Ayre had received a conviction for murder, for which he had received a mandatory life sentence. Mr Ayre had been released on life licence in 2005. Unfortunately in 2006 Mr Ayre committed a further serious offence (although there was no loss of life or limb).
Since the offence Mr Ayre committed was not murder he did not receive a further mandatory life sentence. However, the judge exercised his discretion to impose another sentence of life imprisonment. What was unusual about Mr Ayre’s case was that the judge decided that he would give Mr Ayre a whole life minimum term. This meant that Mr Ayre would remain in prison for the rest of his life and the Parole Board would never review his case in the future.
Mr Ayre approached Swain and Co Solicitors saying that he just wanted some hope for the future and asked whether there was anything we could do to help him. It was immediately clear that the sentence Mr Ayre had received was out of step with other authorities. Recent case law of the Court of Appeal has made clear that a life sentence with a whole life minimum term should be reserved for the most extreme cases and these usually apply where multiple murders have been committed. Moreover a Freedom of Information request revealed that there were only 36 prisoners who had a ‘whole life tariff’ and of these only Mr Ayre had received a discretionary as opposed to a mandatory life sentence.
In the Court of Appeal, the Lord Chief Justice conceded that the whole life term in Mr Ayre’s sentence was manifestly excessive. It was held that Mr Ayre’s whole life tariff would be replaced with a 10 year tariff.
The implications of this case are very significant. Tom Battarbee from Swain and Co Solicitors says: “Of course Mr Ayre will have a great deal of offending behaviour work to do before he will be considered ready for release from custody. This will be a difficult and potentially long journey for him. However, the decision does provide him with hope that one day he may be released from custody.”
The decision also gives Mr Ayre something to work for which was not the case before. More immediately the setting of a minimum term is likely to have an effect on Mr Ayre’s security categorisation which will be of great benefit to him in the meantime.
On a broader level this decision will make it more difficult in future for judges to impose a ‘whole life tariff’ in the case of a discretionary life sentence prisoner
Tom Battarbee
Swain and Co Solicitors
Counsel in this case was Pete Weatherby from Garden Court North Chambers.