R v Corey Hardman Howard & Anor

Because of the age of one of the participants in the case, to whom we referred as NDL, there was a restriction in place preventing reporting of any matter relating to NDL which is likely to lead members of the public to identify him as a person concerned in the proceedings. He will be 18 on 20 April 2026. That order was made in the Crown Court. It continued in force at the date of the appeal. It was made under section 45 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999. Its effect will be that the full circumstances of this quite extraordinary case, which have led to an unusual outcome, cannot be reported until in due course we shall publish our judgments in this case and in the earlier decision in a related case, given on 7 November 2025, in full in a form which is not subject to any reporting restriction. This order will last until 21 April 2026 and the effect of this order, therefore, is to postpone but not to prevent the full reporting of all the circumstances of the case. At that point, we trust, what we are about to do by way of dealing with these two appeals and what we have already done by dealing with the other connected appeal, will become clear and intelligible to any member of the public who is concerned to know about these cases. There is an important public interest in this case which involves a violent homicide. The outcome is exceptional, because of the exceptional facts and it is important that they are in the public domain.

Corey Hardman was born on 20 April 2008. At the time of the incident with which we are concerned, on 9 April 2025, he was 16 years old. Very soon after that point, he reached his 17th birthday, and in April 2026 he will reach the age of 18. The other appellant, Sherrieanne Louise Carlton, is now 34 years old. Both of these appellants, as we shall describe them, appeared in the Crown Court at Leicester for trial in September 2025 in proceedings arising out of the death of Louis Howard. Mr Howard died on 9 April 2025 when he was stabbed to death by Corey Hardman.

Also indicted in the same proceedings was Corey Hardman's mother, Kortnie Hardman Howard, with whom the court dealt on 9 November 2025. An appeal against sentence in her case was allowed. An immediate custodial sentence was varied and a suspended sentence order made in its place in her case. A separate judgment was delivered to explain that which is the judgment that we referred to in paragraph 1 above.

These two appellants, Corey Hardman and Sherrieanne Carlton, have applied for leave to appeal against sentences imposed on them in those proceedings. The Registrar has referred those applications to the full court. We grant leave in both cases, which is why we describe them as the appellants.

Corey Hardman was originally indicted on a count alleging that he murdered Louis Howard, his father. On 23 September 2025 he changed his plea from a simple plea of not guilty to a plea of not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. That plea was entered and accepted on the basis of loss of control. Loss of control is a partial defence to murder created by sections 54 and 55 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. We shall deal a little further with the terms of those provisions shortly, but for present purposes it is enough to say that where that defence applies it reduces a crime which would otherwise have been murder to one of manslaughter.

He was sentenced on 10 October 2025 to a term of 3 years' detention pursuant to section 250 of the Sentencing Code. At the same hearing his mother was also sentenced, as we have said, and so finally was Sherrieanne Carlton. In September 2025 she had pleaded guilty by changing her plea to a count alleging assisting an offender, contrary to section 4(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1967. That count alleged that she had provided assistance to Corey Hardman immediately after he had killed his father. That assistance was intended to assist him to evade detection and to escape the scene. She was sentenced to 21 months' imprisonment in respect of that.

We shall set out some of the facts of the case in a moment, but we should begin by explaining that the key materials in dealing with the sentencing of Corey Hardman are, first of all, the Coroners and Justice Act 2009; secondly many, the Sentencing Council guideline on sentencing children and young people; thirdly, the decision of this court in R v ZA [2023] EWCA Crim 596; [2023] 2 Cr App R (S) 45; finally, the guideline on manslaughter by reason of loss of control applies.

The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 created a new statutory partial defence which replaced the old common law defence of provocation. The terms of the statute are important. Parliament decided that if those terms apply, an offence of homicide may be very much less serious than if they do not. We say may be, because many offences of manslaughter by reason of loss of control are themselves extremely serious offences of homicide, but the circumstances of such cases are infinitely variable, and cases of manslaughter vary in seriousness accordingly.

It is worth setting out at the start of this judgment what Parliament has decided this partial defence amounts to.

The result of that is that it was accepted before the sentencing judge that Corey Hardman acted as he did in killing his father because he was in fear that his father would perpetrate serious violence against his mother. It may not also have been accepted that he was also in fear of being the subject of serious violence himself, but that was his case.

It was accepted that the third element of the statutory test was made out. Without wishing to paraphrase the Act of Parliament in a way which conceals or changes its meaning, what that comes to is the circumstances which confronted Corey Hardman when he killed his father were such that a reasonable person in the same situation as he was might have done the same thing.

Corey Hardman's mother and Louis Howard had been in a domestic relationship with each other for about 18 years by the time of his death. As the judge remarked, that was a relationship which had been through some happy times and had produced three children. It is also clear that it involved some much less happy events. Corey Hardman was the eldest of the three. At the time of the relevant events his two much younger siblings were in the house where they occurred. This was the family home. Corey Hardman's mother, Corey Hardman himself and the other two children all lived there all the time. By the time of the offence, Mr Howard did not live there full time, although he was a frequent visitor. There was a history of domestic violence and abuse going back over a period of years. Mr Howard, of whom much was said to his credit by members of his family at the sentencing hearing, did nonetheless have a habit of using abusive words and language, of shouting, of damaging the property and also of using violence against his partner, Corey Hardman's mother.

There are multiple official records of occasions when she complained about that behaviour to the police, and as is common enough in situations of this kind, those records also include multiple retraction statements, as they are sometimes called. In the very difficult situation which is created for women in those conditions, cases often come before the courts where complaints are made to the police when the person making them is in urgent need of rescue and protection, but then, as things calm down, and perhaps as pressure is brought to bear, they change their mind and decide not to continue with the complaint that they made. This may on occasion mean that those complaints were untrue. Far more frequently it means that they were based on truth but had been withdrawn for the reasons we have just given.

That then was the situation in this small house in Leicester which was the home to this family and in which Corey Hardman grew up. All his life he has been exposed to arguments between his parents and to abusive and violent behaviour committed by his father in the family home. It is unnecessary to give further detail about that, except to say this. The official record is clear that Corey Hardman's mother was the victim of violence from time to time. In his case the official record is less clear and therefore the prosecution did not feel it right to concede that he, Corey Hardman, had also been the victim of violence at the hands of his father. However, his case on that subject was set out in the pre-sentence report that was created for the purposes of his case, and it reads as follows:

That sufficiently describes the history. It is now necessary to record the events of the day or two leading up to Mr Howard's death.

A further incident occurred on 6 April 2025. Corey Hardman's mother complained to the police that he had been violent and abusive and had damaged property. She felt threatened and at risk. The police charged him and released him on police bail with conditions that he should not attend the family home. They also issued a Domestic Violence Protection Notice on 7 April 2025, which he signed on that day. That notice was due to be considered by the magistrates' court on 9 April to determine whether a Domestic Violence Prevention Order should be made. Mr Howard did not attend that hearing. However, he was aware, both from the notice which he had signed and from the terms of his bail, that on that day, 9 April 2025, he ought not to approach the family home.

In breach of those conditions, he did. He arrived sometime before 10 pm and knocked on the door. There was no answer, but he returned about quarter of an hour later. The door was opened to him and he was allowed in. At 10.36 pm (very soon afterwards) there is an audio recording, which we have heard. This was made by a CCTV camera which has a microphone which is designed to focus on Ms Carlton's house, which is next door to the home with which we are principally concerned. A very loud incident can be heard on that recording; this is so notwithstanding that the camera was not inside the house where it was occurring and was some little distance away. The volume of the incident itself therefore to anyone within the house must have created a great impact. Inside the house in addition to Corey Hardman and his parents were his 8-year-old brother and his 7-year-old sister. This was not the first occasion when they had been exposed to such a thing.

What can be heard suggests that Mr Howard was extremely angry and wanted to know where Corey Hardman's mother's phone was. He was effectively frisking her to take it from her, although she was attempting to resist him. He said he wanted to "borrow" the phone but she said he was not going to be ringing anybody with it. He was insistent. Very soon afterwards she says, "Get off me Louis, get off, get off me". By this stage the smallest child can be heard screaming. The voice of Corey Hardman can be heard. There are then three bangs, accompanied by a lot more screaming. Corey Hardman's mother can be heard shouting "no" several times. He can then be heard telling his mother and sister to be quiet and saying, "Do you think it's reasonable to do that for a phone?" Probably at about the time of the bangs during this recording, Corey Hardman had taken up a Zombie knife and used it to stab his father once in the chest, causing him to collapse and rapidly thereafter to die. While he was on the floor, Corey Hardman made a 999 call for assistance for his father using his mother's phone. This apparently happened because she was so distressed and shaken up by what had just occurred that she could not operate it herself. The first part of the 999 call, which we have listened to, Features Corey Hardman trying to get medical help to save his father. He is clearly upset and worried and anxious that everything possible should be done to that end. After a little while the phone is handed to his mother, who continues the conversation. During it, Mr Howard stops breathing and clearly dies. She had attempted to administer CPR to keep him alive but that was without success. It was during that call that she first denied that she had any knowledge of who it was who had stabbed Mr Howard. She did that in order to protect her son from detection and arrest because he had by then left the house in an attempt to escape.

He went next door, where Ms Carlton lives. This is where she did the things which resulted in her conviction for assisting him. The first thing that she did was to allow him to use her phone to call his girlfriend. There is recording of some of the things which were said between Ms Carlton and Corey Hardman at this point on the CCTV system. She told him to take his clothes off because they were bloodstained. She was able to give him a new set of clean clothes. He also took off his training shoes, which were bloodstained, but she could not supply him with alternative footwear. He therefore left her house when he came to do so bare foot. The purpose of all this was so that she could hide the clothing that he had been wearing when he killed his father so that the police would not find it. She also moved the focus of one of the CCTV cameras, which she could control, so that it was less likely to pick up any footage of anything which might incriminate Corey Hardman. Attempting to achieve the same thing when the police later arrived, she told them that her cameras did not work when she knew perfectly well that they did. When she was spoken to, first of all as a witness and thereafter under caution in interview as a suspect, she lied and said that she had not been aware of anything of these events because she had been occupied with headphones on, unable to hear anything.

Corey Hardman made a prepared statement when he was interviewed which explained that at that point, soon after he was arrested, he was suffering from shock. He said that the knife that was used did not belong to him; it belonged to his father. He explained that he did what he did because he was afraid for his mother's life, his own life and the lives of his two younger siblings. At that stage he was seeking to maintain that what he had done was in lawful self-defence of himself and those other people. It was that claim that was abandoned when he entered his guilty plea because it is an element of the offence of manslaughter by reason of loss of control that the violent act causing death must be unlawful.

We conclude this summary of the relevant facts with two final observations. First, Sherrieanne Carlton's attempts to stave off the arrest and detection of Corey Hardman were profoundly ineffective. Although he managed to escape from her garden by climbing over the fence, he was arrested very soon afterwards. The course of justice was in no way adversely affected by her actions, however much she had hoped that it would be. Secondly, there was an issue before the judge about what Corey Hardman had said in his Prepared Statement about the knife. We have described the knife as a ‘Zombie knife’, though what that means for present purposes is that it was a fearsome weapon designed only for use as such. It had no purpose as a cooking implement or tool; it was designed to hurt or kill people. It was therefore thought to be of some significance who owned it and who had brought it into the house so that it was available for Corey Hardman to use in the way that he did. We have already identified his case in that respect. The prosecution did not accept that, although it was confirmed by Corey Hardman's mother, who said that Mr Howard used to carry the knife around with him when he went out, but when he was in, he used to put it on top of the wardrobe which is where Corey Hardman found it immediately before he used it. The judge was sceptical about Corey Hardman's explanation of how he came by the knife but was ultimately persuaded that he should deal with the case on the basis that he had not brought it to the scene but rather that he had used a knife which was at the scene and available for him to use. Who had acquired it and for what purpose was not therefore the subject of judicial determination. This was of some importance in one other respect. There were messages between Corey Hardman and his girlfriend which suggested that he from time to time contemplates using a knife himself. Having been brought up in a violent and abusive household all his life, he appears to have learned some of that behaviour himself, and it manifested itself in the course of his relationship with his girlfriend. It may therefore be of some significance if he acquired this deadly weapon for his own purposes.

We agree with the judge that it would have been quite wrong to sentence him on that basis in these circumstances. He and his mother have always given their account of how the knife came to be available for use and there is no evidence to contradict it. Accordingly, unless the judge were persuaded by some evidence so that he was sure that the knife belonged to Corey Hardman, he was required to sentence him on the basis that he had consistently advanced ever since his Prepared Statement.

The judge dealt with this difficult and demanding case with great care. His sentencing remarks extend over about ten pages of transcript and contain an explanation of his approach to the case. As we have already indicated on a previous occasion when dealing with the appeal of Corey Hardman's mother and as we shall explain shortly, we do not agree with the ultimate determination as to the outcome of the sentencing exercise in this case. In the wholly exceptional circumstances which it presents, it is hardly surprising that different judges may take different views. The judge had a difficult task to undertake. He applied himself to it and produced sentences which in conscience he determined were the right ones. The difference of opinion which this judgment contains is a respectful one.

We will summarise the principal aspects of his reasoning. The hearing before him had taken a long time. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, in ZA were concerned to emphasise that Crown Courts when dealing with children must take time over it. This judge cannot be criticised on that score. The hearing had taken most of the day and by the time sentences were finally pronounced it was nearly 6 pm. The judge had heard victim personal statements from those who had loved Mr Howard and grieved acutely for him. They felt his loss traumatically, and they still do. The judge recorded that material at the start of his sentencing remarks. He then summarised the facts as we have done, largely relying on his summary. He then moved to the proper approach to the sentencing exercise. He said in relation to sentencing Corey Hardman, who was a child, that he had read a vast amount of material. There is a great deal of material and we have read it too. The judge referred to the decision of the Court of Appeal in ZA, which we have also referred to, to the guidelines for Sentencing children and young persons, and to the pre-sentence report. We have touched on all of those things already.

We should say something about the psychiatric reports which the judge also had about Corey Hardman, who suffers from ADHD — attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. That is something which has been diagnosed for some time and is not an artefact created for the purpose of sentencing; it is a genuine condition. It varies in intensity and impact between different people who suffer from it. In his case it is a significant disability.

Sentencing children with ADHD for manslaughter by reason of loss of control is a very difficult exercise indeed. Children naturally are less able to control themselves and exercise calm judgment in difficult circumstances than those whose brains are fully developed. That state of affairs is magnified by a condition such as ADHD. All of that factors into the culpability of an offender being sentenced for this offence. Somebody who is of full age and mature years who loses self-control to such extent that they kill somebody may be entitled to very little sympathy. Somebody much younger and suffering from the condition to which we have referred who loses self-control in agonising circumstances for a very short period of time (as occurred here) is in an altogether different position.

The judge then moved on to say what we have already recorded about the knife that was used in this case and also about what is known from the messages about , Corey Hardman's predilection for the use of knives. He reached the conclusion we have already described.

He then recorded his conclusions about the state of domestic abuse in that house. He particularly emphasised the fact that Mr Howard had no convictions for any offence arising out of any matter of domestic violence or abuse within the home. With respect to the judge, that was a largely irrelevant consideration. That is because Corey Hardman and his mother, in the absence of some evidential basis for rejecting their account of the history of what had taken place, were entitled to be sentenced on the basis that it was true. Whether Mr Howard had acquired any criminal convictions in the course of all that was beside the point. It was in any event largely because his partner had withdrawn her allegations in the circumstances we have already described, which hardly redounds to Mr Howard's credit or reduces the cogency of the evidence about his abusive conduct which the court had. This, in our judgment, led the judge to give too little weight when sentencing both of the family members who were before him to that history of domestic abuse. He said:

In truth, this was a climate of fear which was induced by a protracted series of incidents, and the victims had to live all the days of their life in fear that something would happen again, and all too often it did.

Having reached those factual conclusions, the judge then turned to the sentencing guideline. The relevant sentencing guideline here for this purpose is the guideline for offences of Manslaughter by reason of loss of control. This contains three levels of culpability. The harm is always at the highest possible level of harm because there is always a death.

It was clear that there were no high culpability elements in this case, and the question that the judge decided he needed to address was whether this was a case of medium culpability or lower culpability.

It was agreed between the parties that the case involved "a very high degree of provocation". That was made express to the judge in the documents which each side had prepared. That is a factor which determines that the case is within culpability C —lower culpability. We trust from what we have already said that it is quite obvious why experienced counsel, with close knowledge of the facts of the case, should reach the conclusion that they did.

The judge did not accept that, giving as his reasons the fact that he found the defendants’ account of what had happened unconvincing. He said that there were a number of questions which would have had to have been asked and answered if there had been a trial. Of course there was not a trial because there had been guilty pleas, and where there was a guilty plea, as we have said, in respect of two other matters already, a defendant is entitled to be sentenced on the basis of fact that they advance unless there is evidence to prove that what they say is untrue.

The judge then said that it was not suggested that at the time of his death Mr Howard was in the process of actually assaulting his former partner. He said there were many interventions that were available which did not involve picking up and using a knife, such as shouting "stop it" or trying to intercede between two of them.

Finally, and perhaps to the same effect, the judge said that Corey Hardman did not have to pick up a knife and did not have to use it. With respect to the learned judge, that reasoning does not fully take account of the fact that in this case it was an agreed element of the partial defence of loss of control that Corey Hardman had lost his self-control because he was frightened that Mr Howard would use serious violence against his mother and against himself. Neither in truth does it take account of the fact that the conduct with which we are concerned occurred over a very short period of time. There was no time for mature reflection between becoming aware of the danger that he thought his mother was in and his use of the knife to bring that danger to an end. It was sudden and motivated by loss of control.

For those reasons, we consider that the judge was wrong to deal with the case as a category B case and therefore wrong to come to a custodial sentence of 8 years, before making an adjustment to reflect the age of Corey Hardman and the other mitigating factors, including the circumstances in which he had grown up and the ADHD. To reflect those, the judge halved his original figure of 8 years to 4 and then gave 25% credit for the guilty plea to arrive at his final sentence of 3 years.

The guideline on sentencing young offenders, as explained by ZA, requires a court, even when dealing with an offence as serious as this, to go through a stepped process. The principle is set out at paragraph 1.2 of the guideline, which says:

Later still in the guideline the option available to sentencers of imposing a youth rehabilitation order is dealt with. What is described as an "intensive order" is suggested to be appropriate where there is a "high likelihood of re-offending or very high risk of serious harm". The objectives of such an order are identified. They include dealing with the behaviour of the young person in a way which is designed to prevent its repetition.

In this case the pre-sentence report which was prepared by an experienced worker used to dealing with troubled children suggested that the option was available of a 3-year youth rehabilitation order with a supervision requirement, as well as intensive surveillance and supervision for 180 days, and an electronically monitored curfew for 3 months between 9 pm and 7 am. The objectives of such an order were set out in the report as being to provide all possible assistance to Corey Hardman to ensure that he did not commit further offences. In view of the circumstances of this case and of the messages between him and his girlfriend about knives, if that objective could be successfully achieved, that would provide a substantial element of public protection in a case where that appears to be necessary. On the other hand, the sentence imposed by the judge will result, if left in place, in Corey Hardman's release in the summer of 2026. Thereafter he will be subject to licence for the rest of the sentence and subject to an element of control and supervision but still free in the community to behave as he chooses. The contrast between the level of public protection afforded by the youth rehabilitation order on the one hand and the custodial sentence imposed by the judge on the other requires careful consideration in deciding between them.

Finally in relation to the guideline, it makes it clear that as a matter of law custodial sentences for children should be reserved to cases where they are a last resort, ie where there is no other possible outcome. We should perhaps observe that in making that point the Sentencing Council is simply reciting the law rather than giving any guidance.

We have already expressed the view that the judge's categorisation of this case for the purposes of the guideline was wrong and that he should have started in category C, as both counsel invited him to do. That would have resulted in a substantially shorter term than the one he imposed if it were approached in the same way. It must be recalled that the relevant guideline deals with offences committed by adults. So an adult who kills having lost control in a category C case may receive a sentence after a trial as low as 3 years in a case where culpability is much reduced; a child will receive a significantly less severe sentence in similar circumstances.

In those circumstances, once the correct classification of this offence is arrived at, it becomes clear, in our judgment, that the alternative to custody posed by a youth rehabilitation order is much preferable to what would be a relatively short period of detention which would be unlikely either to rehabilitate Corey Hardman or to protect the public to the same extent as such an order would do. For those reasons, we will allow his appeal, quash the sentence of 3 years' detention and substitute in its place a youth rehabilitation order for 3 years, with a 180-day intensive supervision and surveillance requirement, and an electronically monitored curfew for 3 months between 9 pm and 7 am.

We do not make any allowance against that order which was recommended by the pre-sentence report in those terms, for the fact that he has now spent a substantial period of time in custody. We consider that the aims and objectives of the order will be best achieved if it is imposed in the terms that we have indicated. His appeal therefore is allowed on those terms.

We now turn to Sherrieanne Carlton. It is unnecessary to say any more about the facts of the case in doing so. It is also unnecessary to say anything about the way in which the judge arrived at the term of the sentence of imprisonment of 21 months. We consider that he was quite right in that respect. Sentences for assisting an offender where the offender concerned is at the point of the assistance provided being investigated for an offence of murder will almost always require a substantial sentence of imprisonment. By ‘substantial’ we mean significantly longer than the term of imprisonment that was imposed in this case. This, though, is an exceptional case, as we hope we have managed to make clear. It is also true that the assistance that was provided was, as we have explained, ineffective. Nonetheless, in many cases an immediate term of imprisonment would still be unavoidable.

In this case we consider that the sentence should be suspended and that the outcome was manifestly excessive because it was not. We have considered the Imposition guideline. Sherrieanne Carlton has no previous convictions, the prospects of rehabilitation appear to be good, the question in the Imposition guideline which requires consideration at this point is whether appropriate punishment can only be achieved for this serious offence by the imposition of an immediate custodial sentence. We consider that in the circumstances of this case that is avoidable. In that regard we are particularly influenced, as we should be, by the impact that an immediate sentence will have on others. We now know a little bit more than the judge knew about the two children who were living with Sherrieanne Carlton at the point when she was incarcerated. One of them is living with his father and the other with their grandmother. The circumstances are far from ideal and they are both seriously distressed young children. They, needless to say, miss their mother and are suffering in her absence.

There is also now, which there was not at the point of sentence, evidence that their family home is at risk because of the prison sentence. What the children need is to be reunited with their mother in circumstances where they can live with her. We consider that that is the decisive factor. In doing so we apply the guideline, which requires us to consider the impact of the sentence on others, and also the decision of this court in Petherick [2012] EWCA Crim 2214, which is to the same well-known effect.

Those are the reasons why we consider that it is appropriate that the sentence imposed by the judge should take effect as a suspended sentence order. It will now be suspended for a period of 18 months.