Attorney General welcomes 'one punch' legal changes and sentence increases

18 December 2009

Sentences for manslaughter deaths will be dealt with differently in future, the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland QC, said today, following a landmark judgement at the Court of Appeal in London which will give new guidance in cases of manslaughter where death was a result of unlawful violence.

The Attorney had referred two cases, one from Rhyl, North Wales, the other from Middlesbrough, Teesside, asking the Court to review how these kinds of cases are sentenced and, in particular, to invite the Court to consider whether the guidelines, based on historic cases, are still applicable. Offenders in both cases had their sentences increased as a result of the referral by the Attorney.

One of the two offenders in the Middlesbrough case, Declan Appleby, had his minimum term for murder increased from six to nine years, described by the Court as the 'absolute minimum' appropriate. Both defendants in the Rhyl case, Thomas Bryan and Peter Roberts, had their manslaughter sentences increased (from three to five years for Bryan and 18 months to three-and-a-half years for Roberts). The Court confirmed that this was not a true case of 'one punch manslaughter'.

The Attorney said: "We welcome the Court's conclusion that cases which have often been referred to as 'one punch manslaughter' are often nothing of the sort.

"If there is anyone who does not know that if you punch someone they may fall over, strike their head and then die, we should do everything possible to enlighten that person.

"Changes in the law since the earlier guideline cases mean that crimes which result in death are now dealt with more seriously than before. These are difficult cases to sentence, especially when several people are involved and the judge has to determine the weight which should be placed on one person's involvement over another's, but there has been a disproportionate disparity between the sentencing ranges for murder and single punch manslaughter. I also welcome the sentence increases.

"I'm grateful that the Court of Appeal has been able to give us greater guidance as to how to deal with these particularly delicate cases which cause such pain."

In the North Wales case, Peter Roberts was convicted of the manslaughter of Jonathan Bennett in June 2009 and his co-defendant Thomas Bryan pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The Court had heard that after an argument outside a nightclub in Rhyl, Roberts had encouraged the assault and cleared people out of the way while Bryan had delivered blows so ferocious that the victim was unconscious before he hit the ground. Bryan was sentenced to three years imprisonment and Roberts to 18 months. Although not a traditional 'one punch manslaughter' case in the sense that there was a degree of pre-meditation and more than one blow, the Attorney asked the Court to look afresh at the existing guidance the sentences were based on.

The Middlesbrough case concerned an incident on New Year's Day 2009 in which Declan Appleby and Scott Fullam attacked Ronald Sharples in the street late at night, resulting in him falling down and suffering a fatal head injury. Appleby delivered a high Kung Fu-style kick to Mr Sharples's face or upper body. Fullam delivered a push or a punch. It could not confidently be ascertained whether it was Appleby's kick or Fullam's push that caused Mr Sharples to strike his head. After trial for murder, Appleby was sentenced to a minimum prison term of nine years, which was then reduced to six years and the case was referred to the Court of Appeal as possibly unduly lenient by the Attorney. Fullam pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to two-and-half years' detention in a Young Offender Institution and this was not challenged.

The Court of Appeal agreed that the terms 'one punch manslaughter' will mislead unless strictly confined to cases where the offender acted under provocation, death results from a single blow with a bare hand or fist and, but for the death, the offence would have been charged as, at the highest, assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

In the judgement, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales said "The manslaughter cases with which we are concerned involved gratuitous, unprovoked violence in the streets of the kind which seriously discourages law-abiding citizens from walking their streets, particularly at night, and gives the city and town centres over to the kind of drunken yobbery with which we have become familiar, and a worried perception among decent citizens that it is not safe to walk the streets at night."

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Notes to editors:

  1. The Attorney General invited the Court of Appeal Criminal Division to reconsider the approach to sentencing in cases of manslaughter where the death results from the commission of an offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm contrary to section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 or inflicting grievous bodily harm contrary to section 20 of the same Act. The invitation was extended partly because of the acute distress which sentences at this level commonly cause to the families of the victims.
  2. There have been a number of appeals against one punch manslaughter cases and it is recognised that all vary in their circumstances.
  3. Under the Criminal Justice Act of 1988, The Attorney General's Office has the power to refer sentences passed in certain cases to the Court of Appeal for review if they conclude that the sentence was unduly lenient. A sentence will only be unduly lenient if it falls significantly below the sentence that any Judge could reasonably have passed.
  4. The Attorney General has the power to refer sentences to the Court of Appeal if she considers them to be unduly lenient. The test needed to apply when deciding if a sentence or a tariff may be unduly lenient is if it falls outside the range of sentence that a judge, taking into account any relevant sentencing guidance and all relevant considerations, could reasonably have considered appropriate.
  5. Cases are usually referred to the Attorney General by the CPS but it is open also to victims, their families, members of the public and MPs to ask the Attorney General to consider whether a sentence is unduly lenient.
  6. An unduly lenient sentence is one that falls outside the range of sentence that a judge, taking into account any relevant sentencing guidance and all relevant considerations, could reasonably consider appropriate.
  7. The number of cases considered by the Attorney General varies from year to year but is around 300 - 400. ULS figures for 2008 show that in 2008,