R v Harrison Lawrence Van-Pooss

This is an application by His Majesty's Solicitor General for leave to refer a sentence to this court under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 with a view to its being increased on the ground that it was unduly lenient.

There were two counts on the indictment. The second charged murder; the first was an allegation of a sexual offence against a victim who remains alive. We will not name that person in this judgment. We record at the outset that she is entitled to anonymity which is lifelong under the provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992.

The offender, Harrison Lawrence Van Pooss, is now 21 years old. On 17 December 2024 he pleaded guilty to count 2 (murder) and also to count 1, which charged an offence of operating equipment under clothing to observe another, contrary to section 67(A)(1) and (4) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. That offence resulted in a concurrent sentence of one month's imprisonment. It is only important as part of the factual background against which the dreadful offence charged in count 2 was committed. We shall say no more about what became of count 1 and will only refer to the facts briefly as part of the history.

On 28 February 2025, in the Crown Court at Canterbury, the offender was sentenced by Garnham J to life imprisonment for the murder, with a minimum term of 24 years and 47 days. Other orders were made on which nothing now turns.

In summary, the offender committed a serious sexual assault against the victim of the murder and then brutally murdered her. He had encountered her when she was on her own in a rural area, where there was nobody nearby to help her. She was walking back from the sea after swimming. After the violent and lethal attack, he disposed of her body into water while she was still alive, so that drowning was a partial cause of death. The other physical injuries which she had sustained must inevitably have meant that at least by that stage she was unconscious.

It is necessary for the purposes of this judgment to explain some of the facts in further detail, and also to identify the course of the proceedings and the psychiatric evidence which was gathered by the parties prior to the guilty plea being entered. That will make this judgment longer than is ideal, but in the circumstances of this case it is necessary.

In 2023 the offender was employed as a chef at a public house in Kent. In August 2023, he approached the bar in the pub where a female assistant manager was standing. She realised that he was using his mobile phone to photograph her up her skirt. CCTV footage was examined and that revealed that this had happened on three occasions. The offender was immediately dismissed from his job and the police were called. These events appear to have acted as a trigger for the events which were about to take place.

The offender went home. He packed up a backpack, which included a chef's knife. He went to ground. He built a den for himself not far from the scene where the murder was to take place.

In the early afternoon of the following day, Claire Knights went swimming with her dog in the sea near where the offender was to be found. At about 4.30 pm she was seen by a neighbour heading back towards her car, walking along an isolated track. There, tragically, she encountered the offender.

The judge's careful and detailed sentencing remarks explain what happened next. He said:

The judge then described the assault which followed that sexual assault. He said that it was merciless. It involved repeated blows to the head which caused catastrophic brain injuries. The judge thought that the first blows were probably inflicted by the offender using his fists; but he found that, once she had fallen to the ground, the offender stamped on her head. Those injuries, taken together, resulted in severe injury and almost immediate loss of consciousness. The judge then recorded the pathologist's evidence which detailed some of those serious facial, skull and brain injuries.

The judge went on to make this finding:

Having committed that assault against Ms Knights, the offender placed her body in the nearby dyke, in a location where it would be difficult to find. He disposed of her bloodstained possessions and his own knife. He went to buy bleach, before disposing of his own clothing, leaving his boots close to the location of the body and taking off his underwear in the den which he had created for himself. He began to make telephone calls to his partner in which he gave the impression that he was incoherent and that he did not know where he was or what he was doing.

He was arrested later that evening on suspicion of the offence which became count 1. Ms Knights' body was not found for two days after that, following which the offender was arrested on suspicion of murder. When he was charged, and under caution, he accepted that he was the person who had killed Ms Knights.

The offender has no previous convictions or cautions.

We turn to the history of the proceedings. The first appearance before the Crown Court took place on 20 September 2023. The court was told that the offender had been transferred to a mental hospital and that it would be necessary to obtain psychiatric reports. There followed a lengthy series of psychiatric and psychological examinations and reports which were gathered over a period of over a year following that first appearance.

The evidence soon suggested that there was a possibility at least that the offender was malingering or exaggerating a psychotic presentation, seeking some "secondary gain" (as it was put by the psychiatrists). In the context of a person in the position of the offender awaiting trial for murder, the nature of that secondary gain is obvious. A person whose responsibility for a killing is diminished by reason of an abnormality of the functioning of the mind is entitled to a verdict of manslaughter, rather than a verdict of murder.

In those early days, the offender had reported symptoms of what he believed to be psychosis, and those symptoms were accepted at face value by some clinicians for the purposes of treatment.

By February 2024 it was accepted, on the basis of the medical evidence then available, that the offender was fit to plead. He did not deny the offence, although he said that he had no memory of it.

In about March 2024, he told Dr Rogers that he had developed a false memory about a dog and being told that he should step on the grass. Dr Rogers said:

Another psychiatrist, Dr Brown, prepared a series of reports in which she considered that the available evidence casts doubt over the offender having suffered from a psychotic illness at the material time, but she did not feel able to confirm or to rule out other differential diagnoses as at May 2024.

In the same month, Dr Blackwood, who had been instructed by the prosecution, reported that he did not believe that the offender had any psychiatric defence available to him, but did accept that he was suffering from a borderline personality disorder.

Dr Murphy also examined the offender. He received an account, which later was repeated and recorded in a Defence Statement served on the prosecution and the court, in which the offender said that the deceased had made sexual advances to him and that he did not remember any other details, apart from that.

In the Defence Statement served sometime later, the offender alleged that voices had told him to kill Ms Knights at that point.

The case was originally listed for trial in June 2024. That trial was adjourned, because the medical picture was complex, evolving and unclear. The trial was refixed for 3 March 2025.

Dr Brown's further report, dated 12 November 2024, diagnosed a severe personality disorder. She thought that the offender had suffered serious trauma in childhood and that these stressful events were relevant in provoking the killing. She said:

It is fair to record that Dr Johal, a clinical psychologist, had administered a test which was designed to ascertain whether there was psychological evidence of malingering in the offender's presentation. That assessment did not provide evidence of malingering and was consistent with the offender's presentation at that stage being genuine.

By this stage, in late 2024, no doctor was willing to support a defence of diminished responsibility. The offender was re-arraigned on 17 December 2024 and entered the pleas to which we have already referred.

The sentencing hearing took place over two days, on 27 and 28 February 2025. The court received some of the most moving victim personal statements which this court has encountered. They came from Annie Watson (Claire Knights' younger sister); from her son, Elliot Sloane-Knights; and her brother, David Knights. Stuart Hulme (Ms Knights' partner) supplied a moving impact statement in which he described the dreadful consequences of his loss to him.

The sentencing hearing took as long as it did because it was necessary for the judge to examine with care the very substantial amount of psychological and psychiatric evidence which had been provided to him. We have briefly summarised only some of that and quoted selectively from it. That is sufficient for our purposes, because the judge made findings of fact which he set out with great care in his sentencing remarks. No one has suggested that he made any error in his findings of fact which should cause us to approach the case on any different factual basis from that which he found. He said this:

The judge referred to the account given to Dr Murphy, which was later summarised and set out in the Defence Statement, in this context. He said that this involved, as late as May 2024, a fabricated narrative of events which might provide an explanation as to how the offender's DNA came to be found on vaginal swabs. The judge described that account as "untrue, outrageous and designed to provide you with an unmerited defence".

The judge's conclusion about the offender's mental state was that the personality disorder, which he had described, marginally affected the offender's ability to exercise self-control "although you retained much of that ability". The judge said that this justified a "modest reduction" in his assessment of the offender's culpability.

This was, it was agreed by both sides, a murder which involved sexual conduct. It fell into a category where the seriousness is described in Schedule 21 as "particularly high". This means that the starting point when determining the minimum term is 30 years. That was the basis on which the judge acted.

The Schedule then requires the court, when determining the minimum term, to identify aggravating factors and mitigating factors. This was the subject at the hearing of careful submissions by both sides. The judge ultimately found that the aggravating factors and the mitigating factors balanced each other out, so that the minimum term before credit for the guilty plea would be assessed at 30 years.

The aggravating factors which the judge identified were as follows:

By way of explanation of that last comment by the judge, we observe that when identifying aggravating factors in a particularly serious murder, the court has to bear in mind that a murder of that kind will always have substantial aggravating factors and that to an extent they are taken into account in the selection of a starting point which is double that which applies to less serious murders. The judge knows what factors he has taken into account in that way, and therefore is able to identify what additional factors there are relevant to this case which justify or require an increase in the starting point above and beyond that 30 year level.

The judge identified four matters of mitigation as being relevant:

The Solicitor General submits, through Mr Jonathan Polnay KC, first, that we should interfere with the sentence because the judge erred in holding, as he did, that those aggravating and mitigating factors balanced each other out.

The second submission which the Solicitor General advances through Mr Polnay is that the judge gave excessive credit for the very late guilty plea. It will be recalled from the account we have given of the proceedings that the plea was entered in December 2024, prior to a trial in March 2025, but that trial date was the second trial date which this case had been given. The first trial had been intended for June 2024. The guilty plea was, therefore, entered very late. Mr Polnay accepts that it was reasonable in the circumstances of this case for psychiatric and psychological reports to be obtained and that the exception to the general rule about the credit for very late pleas, contained in paragraph F1 of the Sentencing Council's guideline on that subject, applies to a degree in this case. The degree to which it applies is dependent upon the judgment which had to be made by the sentencing judge and which has to be reviewed by us about the complex reasons why the guilty plea was entered as late as it was. The prosecution submitted that the credit should be reduced to something near the level which is conventionally allowed for pleas at the door of the court. They suggested that a level of ten to 15 per cent credit in non-murder cases would have been appropriate, which is reduced under the rules because this is a case of murder, to half of that level.

The defence submitted that full credit should be given because it was only in November 2024 that Dr Brown reported finally in the terms we have identified above. It was only at that point that it was clear to the offender and his advisors that a defence of diminished responsibility was not available to him. The judge said this:

This meant that, in the result, the minimum term which the judge had selected before applying the plea discount was reduced from 30 year by four years and 133 days, to 25 years and 183 days. The offender had spent 501 days on remand, and accordingly the minimum term was fixed and announced by the judge in court as 24 years and 24 days.

It is unnecessary for the purposes of this judgment to set out in detail any of the relevant guidelines or any of the relevant legislation. The judge had all of that firmly in mind, and so do we.

Mr Polnay argues the Solicitor General's two grounds of criticism of that result by submitting that the aggravating factors which the judge had identified, and to which we have referred above, clearly outweighed the mitigation. Whereas the aggravating factors were powerful, the mitigation was far less weighty. Mr Polnay accepts that there was mitigation, but submits that it was of limited weight.

The aggravating factors referred to in that submission did not include the feigning by the offender of psychosis. The judge had found that that had taken place. It is clear to us that that conduct significantly complicated the investigation and prosecution of this case. It significantly prolonged the time between the murder and the trial, and it was designed to produce an unjust outcome in that the offender hoped that he might in due course be convicted only of manslaughter, rather than of the murder of which he was guilty.

Mr Polnay submits that the conduct in feigning psychosis was also relevant to the level of credit which the offender should have received. In the event, he received very substantial credit.

Mr Moses KC, who appears on behalf of the offender with Mr Malik, puts the matter slightly differently from the way in which Mr Polnay puts it. He submits that the reduction in credit was rather greater than Mr Polnay accepts.

Mr Moses further submits, both in helpful written documents and in moderate and well judged oral submissions before us this morning, that the finding of the judge about the feigning of the psychosis needs to be put into context. He referred us to other parts of the medical evidence, and he seeks to limit the duration of the pretence to a short period at the start of the investigation and prosecution of the case. He seeks to persuade us that what happened thereafter was not the fault of the offender and should not be held against him. He also observes that the judge, in the way that we have already described, regarded the aggravating factors as modest, not because they did not matter, but because he had allowed for conduct of that kind already in selecting a starting point as high as 30 years; and thus any increase should only be at the modest level which would be equivalent to the equally modest mitigation which was available. Mr Moses justifies those submissions by reference to parts of the medical and factual evidence which we have referred to already in our summary of what has taken place in this case.

Mr Moses dealt with the Defence Statement which contained the "outrageous" account of the events as being a record of what the offender was then saying. He submits that, although that account was advanced at that stage and to Dr Murphy, and although it must have been confirmed on instructions to the offender's lawyers for it to result in the Defence Statement, it was never advanced as part of any defence submissions made at any stage during the history of the proceedings.

The first thing we wish to say is that we commend the experienced judge for his approach to this case. In dealing with a horrifying and dreadful case of this kind, a judge must maintain an objective and dispassionate approach. The judge's job is to apply the law to the facts of the case and to be fair to the person who is to be sentenced. That is not easy in a case such as this. As we have already said, the findings of fact which the judge made following his careful analysis of complicated evidence are unimpeachable. They are not criticised by anybody. Those findings enable us to assess the final result of this case in the way which we are now required to do. We express our gratitude to the judge for that.

The Solicitor General's first submission, in our judgment, has force. The aggravating factors which the judge identified clearly outweigh the impact of such mitigation as there is. It is always necessary for any court sentencing a young offender to remember their age and level of maturity, in particular where their life has included serious hardships which have left their mark on them.

We therefore do not approach this case on the basis that there is no mitigation; nor are we invited to do so. But even having regard to those matters we have just mentioned, the aggravating factors were, in our judgment, of greater weight than the mitigating factors.

It is right, as the judge said, that a starting point of 30 years is a high starting point for particularly serious offences. It therefore does incorporate many serious aggravating features which are common to offences of that very high degree of gravity, and it is important not to double count those factors. But, in the end, we consider that in approaching his difficult task, the judge did fall into error because we consider that, even having regard to the need to avoid double counting, the aggravating factors here were powerful. That conclusion is reinforced by what we have to say about the offender's conduct in feigning psychosis in a calculated, cynical and manipulative way in order to try to achieve an outcome which was unjust, in his favour.

That, in our judgment, was a serious aggravating factor and puts beyond doubt our judgment that the balance required an increase in the starting point above the level of 30 years.

In our judgment the appropriate sentence, before discount for the guilty plea, should have been 33 years.

What we have said about the offender's conduct in feigning psychosis in the way that the judge found that he had done also impacts on the appropriate level which he should have received for the late guilty plea. We consider that, in allowing a very substantial level of credit for the late plea, the judge did err in favour of undue leniency. We consider that we ought not to attempt to reflect our findings in relation to this case by means of some precise, arithmetically derived percentage. The way we propose to approach this is to say that the most credit which the late guilty plea truly deserved from that sentence of 33 years was two years. That results in a minimum term of 31 years, from which the days which had been spent on remand prior to sentence (501 days) will be deducted, as before.

That means that the Parole Board will be unable to consider the release of the offender until that period has elapsed. When it has elapsed, they will be able to consider his release; but he will not be released unless the Parole Board has decided that it is not longer necessary in the public interest for him to be detained. That decision will be taken having regard to the risk which he is said then to pose, and to how he has progressed during his sentence. No one today can predict what the outcome of those decisions will be. They will not fall to be made for a very long time indeed.

Accordingly, we grant the Solicitor General's application for leave to refer the sentence. We quash the sentence that was imposed in the court below and we impose a sentence of 31 years (less 501 days), which means that the offender will serve a sentence of 29 years and 229 days.