IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Date of written ruling: 22 December 2016
Before :
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE FRASER
R | |
- v - | |
Z | Defendant |
On an application by News Group Newspapers Ltd
on behalf of the media
James Newton-Price for the Crown
Michael Parroy QC and David Reid for the Defendant
Adam Wolanski for News Group Newspapers Ltd
Hearing date: 16 December 2016
JUDGMENT
Mr Justice Fraser :
On 12 October 2016 the defendant, to whom I shall refer as Z, was convicted at Winchester Crown Court by a unanimous verdict on a count of attempted murder. The full facts of the offence are contained in my sentencing remarks which are attached to this ruling as Appendix 1. On 16 December 2016 I sentenced Z to an extended sentence of 14 years, having found her dangerous, with a custodial term of 10 years and an extended licence period of 4 years. The reason for the lengthy interval between conviction and sentence was, at the request of the defence, to allow sufficient time for a full psychiatric assessment to be performed by the same Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist who had assessed her fitness to plead.
Z was 14 when she committed the offence in April 2016, and was 15 by the time of her trial and conviction. She had an obsession with serial killers and murders, and had made two plans to kill, the second involving her mother and brother as her intended victims. She carried out neither of these plans, but replaced her second plan with another one, this time to kill A, a close school friend who was 15 at the time. Her planning and state of mind during the period immediately before the offence were recorded in both text messages and internet activity. In messages sent to others she spoke of “going a little bit mad”, stated that she was “having some really weird and bad thoughts”, and had “cut up [her] face”. That refers to the fact that she had taken a kitchen knife to her bedroom late at night and had physically cut a grin into her face in the style of the Joker from the Batman films. She had previously self-harmed, and had discussed with another school friend B harming herself in this way to appear like this film character. The same knife was taken to school the next morning and used to stab A on the premises of the school they both attended. Very fortunately, A was not killed. An order has been in place throughout the proceedings under section 45 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 restricting publication of any information that would be likely to identify Z, amongst others.
On 16 December 2016, immediately after sentence, News Group Newspapers Ltd, which publishes “The Sun” newspaper, made an application by its counsel Mr Wolanski to lift the restriction in relation to identification of Z, so that her name and photograph could be published. I gave an oral ruling on this application at the time refusing the application, but stated I would provide more detailed reasons in writing later. These are those reasons.
From 13 April 2015 the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 (“YJCEA”) provides the relevant statutory power for the criminal courts to grant anonymity to juvenile defendants, victims and/or witnesses in adult criminal proceedings (as opposed to Youth Courts). This replaces the former powers under section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (“CYPA”) in relation to criminal proceedings, although that latter statute continues to apply to civil and family proceedings. It has been held that the case law under s.39 CYPA provides appropriate guidance to the principles and practice to be followed concerning applications under s.45 YJCEA; R v H [2015] EWCA Crim 1579 per Treacy LJ at [8].
Section 45(3) YJCEA provides that the court may direct that no matter relating to any person concerned in criminal proceedings shall, whilst he or she is under the age of 18, be included in any publication if it is likely to lead members of the public to identify him or her as a person concerned in the proceedings. An order under this section may be made in respect of a witness (including the victim) or a defendant and has effect until the defendant attains the age of 18 (section 45(7)). In deciding whether to make an order, the court should have regard to the welfare of the person concerned (section 45(6)). Section 45(8) identifies particular examples of information that a reporting restriction under section 45 may contain, including the young person's name, home address, school, place of work, or still or moving images. As with any departure from open justice there must be a good reason for imposing an order under section 45. The court must be satisfied that on the facts of the case before it the welfare of the child outweighs the strong public interest in open justice.
It is an important component of the system of justice in this jurisdiction that it is open and public. Courts are open to the public, who have free access to sit in court and observe proceedings. The media are the means through which the public are provided with information about court proceedings. With some important exceptions such as sexual offences, for which the victims are entitled to lifelong anonymity, defendants, victims and witnesses are named and these details can and often do appear in contemporaneous reports of criminal trials.
In Re S (a child) [2005] 1 AC 593 Lord Steyn said that:
"…from a newspaper's point of view a report of a sensational trial without revealing the identity of the defendant would be a very much disembodied trial. If the newspapers choose not to contest such an injunction, they are less likely to give prominence to reports of the trial. Certainly, readers will be less interested and editors will act accordingly. Informed debate about criminal justice will suffer."
In R v Croydon Crown Court ex parte Trinity Mirror PLC and Others [2008] EWCA Crim 50 the then President of the Queen's Bench Division, Judge LJ, said:
"In our judgment it is impossible to over-emphasise the importance to be attached to the ability of the media to report criminal trials. In simple terms this represents the embodiment of the principle of open justice in a free country. An important aspect of the public interest in the administration of criminal justice is that the identity of those convicted and sentenced for criminal offices should not be concealed. Uncomfortable though it may frequently be for the defendant that is a normal consequence of his crime…From time to time occasions will arise where restrictions on this principle are considered appropriate, but they depend on express legislation, and, where the Court is vested with a discretion to exercise such powers, on the absolute necessity for doing so in the individual case."
However, it is recognised that so far as defendants who are not yet 18 are concerned, there are potentially damaging welfare issues which may arise if their identity is published. This is therefore an exception to the principle of open justice, and has been recognised for many years.
The cases under s.39 CYPA 1933 make it clear, however, that the simple fact of a defendant being under 18 is not in itself an overwhelming or automatic justification for an order restricting identification of the defendant by the media.
In R v Lee (a minor) [1993] 1 WLR 103 it was said that the mere fact that the accused or convicted party is under 18 is not of itself a sufficient justification to make a s.39 order. The court added that it was wrong to say that it would only be in rare and exceptional cases that an order for anonymity would not be made. The court has a discretion and this was not fettered. There must be a good reason for making an order under s.39.
On an application of this kind, the court has to undertake the balancing exercise in accordance with the principles identified by Simon Brown LJ (as he then was) in R v Winchester Crown Court [2000] 1 Crim. App R 11 (Divisional Court), which were restated by Hooper LJ in R (Y) v Aylesbury Crown Court and Others [2012] EWHC 1140 (Admin) They are as follows:
In deciding whether to impose or thereafter to lift reporting restrictions, the court will consider whether there are good reasons for naming the defendant;
In reaching that decision, the court will give considerable weight to the age of the offender and to the potential damage to any young person of public identification as a criminal before the offender has the benefit or burden of adulthood;
By virtue of section 44 of the 1933 Act, the court must "have regard to the welfare of the child or young person";
The prospect of being named in court with the accompanying disgrace is a powerful deterrent and the naming of a defendant in the context of his punishment serves as a deterrent to others. These deterrents are proper objectives for the court to seek;
There is a strong public interest in open justice and in the public knowing as much as possible about what has happened in court, including the identity of those who have committed crime;
The weight to be attributed to the different factors may shift at different stages of the proceedings and, in particular, after the defendant has been found, or pleads, guilty and is sentenced. It may then be appropriate to place greater weight on the interest of the public in knowing the identity of those who have committed crimes, particularly serious and detestable crimes;
The fact that an appeal has been made may be a material consideration."
It is therefore the case that where an application, as here, is made after sentence, the balance has shifted more towards permitting publication in the interests of open justice, as that principle is more likely to outweigh the interests of the juvenile defendant.
An example of this exercise leading to the court permitting the identity of a defendant being published is R v Cornick [2014] EWHC 3623 (QB), a decision under s.39 CYPA 1933. In that case, Coulson J permitted identification of a defendant who had pleaded guilty to murder, and who was sentenced to detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure with a specified minimum term of 20 years. The defendant was 16 at the time of sentence and 15 at the time of the offence. He had, after careful planning, attacked his Spanish teacher at school in a Spanish lesson with a knife, one of two taken to school for that purpose, in front of numerous class mates. The attack was described by the judge as “relentless, brutal and cowardly” and involved his chasing her as she sought to escape, stabbing her many times. The victim was a much-loved teacher of many years’ service, in respect of whom for some unfathomable reason the defendant had developed an obsession about killing. In weighing up the competing factors, the judge considered the evidence before him from psychiatrists that identification of the defendant may make his rehabilitation more difficult. However, he concluded that the result of the balancing exercise in which he was engaged was firmly on the side of the public interest in identification.
Mr Wolanski relies heavily upon this case, as it to be expected. However, each case must be considered on its own merits and given the welfare of the defendant herself is to be considered, every case will be different. Mr Wolanski also submits that it is the interests solely of the defendant that must be considered. The welfare of no other person can be considered, and he relies in this respect upon the statements of Coulson J in [14]. However, that statement is made in the context of the welfare of the defendant’s family not being a relevant consideration. I agree with Coulson J that the welfare of the defendant’s family is not a relevant consideration when performing the balancing exercise necessary. However, on the very complicated facts of the instant case, here the welfare of the victim would also be affected by publication of the defendant’s identity, in circumstances which I will explain. Even without considering the victim’s welfare, however, in this case the balancing exercise is in favour of not permitting identification in any event.
The application is opposed by the defendant. Her counsel point out that she was only 14 when she committed this offence. She was in a highly vulnerable and troubled frame of mind when she did so. She had self-harmed before, first when she was 12; she has self-harmed since, whilst in custody. Self-harm was a direct feature of the actual offence; she cut a “grin” into her own face the night before the offence. There is evidence before the court both from the psychiatrist and in a letter from the Youth Offending Team that identification will be likely to impede her rehabilitation, which will in any case be protracted and difficult. Publication of a photograph (which may, one way or another, eventually be of her with the facial cuts to which I have referred) could be highly damaging to her welfare.
This case, in my judgment, raises important matters of public debate concerning the damaging nature upon young people of watching gruesome material on the internet to which they have unfettered access via computers and phones. That was a feature of this case that may have had an impact upon the offending. However, the facts relevant to that debate are available regardless of the defendant’s identity being known or protected. There is no doubt that the possibility of a sensational article with the defendant’s name and photograph might make more of a news sensation that one that was anonymised with no photograph. However, the principles to be applied on this application do not concern the manner in which the media might choose to deploy both photograph and identity in any report, and I do not take this into account. The debate about the relevant matters can occur even if the application by News Group is refused.
I turn now to consider the victim. In R v H in [9] Treacy LJ stated:
“We have considered the circumstances of this case and the reports before the court relating to the welfare of the appellant. We have come to the conclusion that an order restricting reporting of his identity is in the circumstances appropriate, having balanced the legitimate public interest in open reporting against the appellant's age and the potential damage to him of identification. We have also taken account of the further factor identified by Mr Saunders [counsel for the appellant], which is that if the appellant's identity were to be disclosed at this stage, there is a possibility of indirect identification of the victim given the circumstances of the case.”
(emphasis added).
In my judgment that consideration also applies here. Due to the circumstances of the offence, identification of the defendant is highly likely to lead to identification of the victim.
The victim in this case, A, was only 15 at the time she was stabbed. The physical harm she suffered was not great; the psychological harm she has suffered has been considerable. She has had a complete nervous breakdown after the trial and has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Her condition is, unusually and because she and Z were such close friends, worsened by concerns about Z’s welfare and Z’s future. Identification of Z, and the ensuing publicity, will be highly likely to make the victim’s recovery less likely.
I consider that “public interest” also includes the ability of victims to recover from the effects of crimes they have suffered. It is a matter of statutory interpretation whether s.45(6) YJCEA 1999 and the phrase “the welfare of that person” includes or excludes the welfare of the victim. It is unnecessary here to resolve that, because the same result is obtained whether it does or does not. This is because, due to the close and long friendship between Z and A, their welfare is somewhat intertwined. Although Z tried to kill A, she was very close friends with her and is affected to some extent by A’s condition. Therefore, a longer and less certain recovery by A will affect the welfare of Z. This might seem wholly circular but on the exceptional facts of this case I am satisfied that A would suffer further psychological effect from identification of Z, and that this would affect Z’s welfare too. Accordingly, whichever approach is taken to statutory interpretation and the public interest of victims, the balance in my judgment is very firmly in favour of the welfare of Z and a continuing prohibition on publication of identity. I should make it clear that the same result is obtained even if the balancing exercise is undertaken without considering the impact upon the victim of publication at all.
Finally, one point heavily relied upon by Mr Wolanski is that the order will lapse, and Z will be identified, in any event when she reaches the age of 18. This is correct, as the exceptional power to grant life-long anonymity to juvenile defendants is not available under s.45 YJCEA 1999. However, the fact that such protection will not be available to Z from July 2019 does not mean that it should not be available to her between now and then, which is a period of about 32 months, if the relevant balancing exercise leads to a conclusion that her welfare now outweighs the strong public interest in open justice. During that period, a considerable amount of rehabilitation could be achieved, and the impact upon her of identification when she is 18 is likely to be far less damaging than the impact upon her of that when she is only 15. If this were a good point, it would make the balancing exercise to which all the authorities refer otiose. It makes no difference to my conclusion, which is that the order currently in place prohibiting publication of details about the defendant should not be varied in the way contended for by News Group Newspapers Ltd.
R v Z | ||
APPENDIX 1
Sentencing remarks:
Introduction
I remind everyone that there is an order in place banning publication of details that
would disclose your identity due to your age. This order also prevents identification of
your school, and also of the witnesses who are under the age of 18.
On 12 October 2016 the jury unanimously reached a verdict of guilty on a count of
attempted murder. You had already pleaded guilty to one count of possessing a knife
on school premises, and to a count of wounding under section 20 of the Offences
against the Person Act. However, that latter count no longer needs to be considered as
the jury convicted you of attempted murder. I am going to deal firstly with the
circumstances of the offence, the effect this has had on your victim, and the content of
the different reports that have been prepared about you, so that all the necessary
information is before the court for sentencing purposes. I will then come to the actual
sentence. This is a highly unusual and exceptional case and these remarks are lengthy
as a result.
Background
At the time of the offence on 25 April 2016 you were only 14, and your victim was
I shall refer to her as A. You were both in Year 10 at the same school. Although
you were no longer best friends as you had been the previous year, you remained
friends and were in the same friendship group at school. You had been the victim of
some online bullying in 2015 when your personal details were released online, and as
a result of this you had experienced online abuse, unwanted attention and obscene
suggestions from third parties. You wrongly suspected that A was involved in this.
Because of this mistaken belief, your feelings towards her changed, although you kept
this to yourself. I should state that A denied having been involved in any way in the
bullying behaviour, and there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that she was. The
accusation that it was her has had a devastating effect upon her, to which I will return.
But you were simply mistaken about that. Perhaps in an effort to put what was
otherwise a wholly motiveless and incomprehensible attack into context, the Crown
put to you during the trial that you had come to hate A. You denied this, and simply
stated that she was the only member of your closely knit friendship group with whom
you had any sort of issue, and that was why you had chosen her to be the victim. I
accept that evidence. There was no animosity or hostility on your part towards A; she
was just a convenient target.
All the members of your group at school were academically able and did not get into
trouble. You were all described by the Assistant Principal of the School as being part
of “the nice crowd”. You were in the top science set and were due to take your
Physics GCSE one year early, which gives an indication of your academic ability.
You are articulate and intelligent.
Investigation of your phone and internet activity by the police after the offence show
numerous messages passing between you and A in the weeks before the attack
discussing normal teenage matters such as make-up, boys, a school trip, school
assignments and other entirely conventional subjects, which probably could be found
in most of the communications sent every day between teenagers in this country.
However, you had a far darker side to your personality, and this is shown in the
lengthy schedule that was prepared of your phone and internet activity. Your school
friends gave evidence – and you admit - that you had an obsession with serial killers
and with school shootings. You watched snuff movies on the internet, and would
show these to your friends at school on your phone, for shock value. These films
showed people being actually tortured and killed, with these dreadful images recorded
and posted online. You watched films where people were murdered, chopped up, and
also an IS video, the link for which was sent to you by an online contact in America.
One of the films you watched and showed to your friends was the rape of a tiny baby
by an adult. Whatever your mental state at the time, common sense suggests that
watching such material can only have made it far worse. It is shocking that such
dreadful material is so readily available to anyone – including a minor – who has a
smart phone. Regrettably, none of those to whom you showed this material told any
teachers or adults about this disturbing behaviour. This behaviour was hidden from
the view of any adult. None of your school friends challenged you about this
behaviour. You were described by one of them as “edgy” and “cool”. There is nothing
remotely cool about watching such material, which is highly disturbing, damaging,
and of the most serious kind.
You described yourself as “motivated” by serial killers such as the two boys who
carried out the Columbine school massacre in the United States. This particular mass
school shooting led to 12 students and one teacher being murdered, and numerous
other people being injured, in a gun attack by two teenage boys on 20 April 1999 in
Colorado. You based a school fashion project on Ted Bundy, another notorious serial
killer. You prepared a “kill list” of about 60 people and made outline plans to carry
out a school shooting of your own. You listed the names of people at school, as well
as your own mother and brother, in your journal. You changed your mind about this
plan and burned your journal in the presence of A and another friend whom I will call
B. B knew what the journal contained, and knew about the kill list, but A did not.
You then formed another plan, this time to kill your mother and brother whilst they
were asleep at home. You discussed this plan at length with B, who had become your
best friend in Year 10. There were numerous exchanges between you and B relating to
this plan. You discussed cutting your face like the Joker in the Batman films, pleading
insanity, and going on the run together afterwards. She did not take you seriously, but
went along with you. You said that you would blame it on voices in your head if
anything went wrong with your plan.
You researched different ways to kill your mother and brother silently. Again, you did
not have any particular animosity towards them, but the fact you lived with them
made them easy targets. You researched online how to kill people with a knife, how to
slit their throats, how to muffle their cries, how long it takes for a person to bleed to
death, and what sort of knife should be used.
The schedule of relevant messages and internet searches runs to over 1000 entries in
March and April 2016. They make for disturbing reading.
You told B that this attack had to take place in April because it had to be before your
GCSEs, and you said in evidence that you felt that one dramatic event could help all
the smaller stresses in your life go away. It might be a coincidence that the Columbine
massacre also happened in April. Sadly, you had also self-harmed in 2015 by cutting
your legs and arms, but you said this had not really helped.
Finally, you settled on the night of Sunday 24 April 2016 as the occasion when you
would kill your mother and brother. The messages you sent that night, and the internet
sites you researched in the early hours until well past 2.00am, show an extraordinary
degree of emotional turmoil on the part of a 14-year old girl.
The offence
In the messages to others, you said you felt you were “going a little bit mad”, that you
were “having some really weird and bad thoughts”, that you felt you “could do
anything” and that you had “cut up your face”. That refers to the fact that you had
taken a kitchen knife to your bedroom and physically cut a grin into your face in the
style of the Joker from the Batman films. You told the court that during the course of
this night your plan to kill your mother and brother faded – I consider that this was
because you realised that you could not go through with it. However, it was replaced
with a plan to stab A. You researched the position of the heart, and how far it is from
the surface of the body. You sent a message to A, telling her to make sure she was by
the normal meeting place in the morning at school as you had something to give her.
You told A it was a present and you had to give it to her in secret. In fact, you
intended to stab and kill her.
You covered your facial cuts with make-up and a scarf, and told B you had a knife
and you were going to stab A. She did not believe you were serious, and watched you
and A head off to the back of the science block before school without any misgivings.
You went to the steps behind the science block and told A to shut her eyes and hold
her hands out as you had a present. She did so, trusting you, and never imagining you
meant to harm her. You moved her long hair away from her chest because it was in
the way, and took the knife out of your bag. Extremely fortunately, at the very last
moment, A instinctively felt something was wrong, and opened her eyes. She saw you
in the act of lunging towards her with the knife to stab her. Her quick reactions saved
her from very serious injury or death. She jumped back instantly, just in time.
Although the knife penetrated through the lapel of her blazer, the front panel of her
blazer, and her school shirt, it did not penetrate very far into her body, and nowhere
near as deep as you had intended. Bleeding, confused, injured and extremely shocked,
she ran for help and you ran off, discarding the knife nearby. You tried to phone your
mother many times, and hid in a quiet residential street. Eventually you returned home
where your parents were waiting for you. In one of your interviews with the police,
you did indeed say that you heard a voice in your head.
Your oral evidence in court was quite chilling. You described things in a matter of
fact way, and explained facts relating to your planning and research, as though they
were wholly rational and normal. You said that after you had decided not to kill your
mother and brother, you were concerned that you would lose face with B if you did
not go through with something. B did not realise at the time how serious you were,
and gave full assistance to the prosecution in your trial.
There is simply no comprehensible motive for this attack at all, which was carefully
planned and premeditated, and you could not explain it yourself. You said part of you
did not want to commit this offence, but part of you was making you do it, and you
felt you had no choice but to do it. I accept that statement accurately summarises how
you felt at the time.
The effects of the offence
The effect on A has been considerable. You, her former best friend, tricked her into a
situation where she was alone, and you tried to kill her. She thought you had a present
for her. She unsurprisingly now lacks trust in others, does not like having her eyes
closed, and also wonders why B, whom A has known since she was a baby, did not
warn her of your plan. There are two Victim Personal Statements from A’s mother
before the court. The first makes for very sad reading. A was after the offence
undoubtedly in a state of emotional turmoil. She was also, to her credit, very
concerned about you, and even missed you, as you were one of her close friends.
However, the second statement is far worse as it makes clear that after the trial, A had
a complete breakdown and is described by her mother as being “utterly broken”. She
has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (“PTSD”) and is having to
undergo intensive therapies to recover. It is to be hoped that her condition will, over
time, improve. But you, her former best friend, attempted to murder her for no reason
whatsoever, and this is difficult for her to understand. Had she not opened her eyes at
that split second, she would probably have been killed. The offence has caused serious
psychological harm to an entirely innocent 15-year old girl.
The Reports
I now turn to what the reports say about you. I ordered a psychiatric report for obvious
reasons. Your oral evidence in particular was such that most, if not all, people
listening to it in court must have concluded that there was something very wrong with
your thought processes in March and April of this year. I also have a pre-sentence
report from the Youth Offending Team.
Because Attempted Murder is a Specified Offence under Schedule 15 of the Criminal
Justice Act 2003, I have to consider and assess dangerousness.
The psychiatric report has been prepared by a consultant child and adolescent
psychiatrist. He states that you do not suffer from a mental disorder that would
warrant hospital admission. You do have a lack of emotionality, are highly controlled,
and also you do not know very much about the darker side that you doubtless have.
You had an active interest in killing, and may also have a current interest in doing so.
He states that there is an aspect of you that has been, and might still be described as,
homicidal. So far as the offence is concerned, there was little generally observable,
other than to B, that would have made your behaviour predictable or understandable.
The relevant processes and triggers were entirely internal to you. He puts your offence
as amongst the most concerning, and concludes that the dangerousness is internal to
you. He states that “the implication is that we would not get early warnings of
another murder being planned until there was a victim”. However, his view is that
sophisticated and expert therapeutic work with a clinical psychologist has the greatest
chance of assisting you in successfully dealing with this disturbing side of your
personality.
The pre-sentence report paints a picture of a stable home life. Even though your
parents are separated, you had regular contact with your father. You were a high
achiever at school and had never been in trouble before. However, you appear, in the
secure unit where you are now, still to be drawn to others who share similar thoughts
and beliefs. That report considers that you are a medium risk of re-offending, and a
high risk of causing serious harm to others.
These are highly concerning reports.
Dangerousness
The test to apply when assessing dangerousness is whether there is a significant risk
to members of the public of serious harm occasioned by the commission by you of
further specified offences. Taking into account all of the information before the court,
I conclude that there is such a significant risk and that you are therefore dangerous.
This is a rare conclusion regarding one as young as you, but in my judgment it is
unavoidable in your case.
Sentence
I must then consider a life sentence. I am satisfied that a life sentence is not justified
in this case. It is however so serious that custody is inevitable.
Because A managed to avoid the full force of the knife, the physical harm she
suffered was not great: a small puncture wound. However, your culpability was high,
as you took a weapon with you to the scene and formed a careful plan, which you
carried out. Both of these are aggravating factors. You also took A to a secluded place
and asked her to close her eyes, which rendered her vulnerable. Although there is an
imbalance between culpability and physical harm, the level of psychological harm to
A is very high and she has been diagnosed with PTSD. The level of physical harm
intended, though, was very high, namely death.
You have no previous convictions, were of good character, and there is no question of
drugs or alcohol playing any part in this offending. There is little sign of remorse, but
given what the psychiatrist says about you in his report this is not surprising.
In terms of mitigation, I take into account your good character and also that you were
very young at the time that you committed this offence. A person of 14 years of age is
not criminally culpable in the same way that an adult would be for the same offence.
Any teenager is only part of the way to adulthood, and that must be taken into account
when considering the appropriate period of detention. Your age reduces your personal
responsibility for the offending. You had self-harmed prior to the commission of this
offence and that has continued since your arrest, which shows you are also vulnerable
and I take that into account also. The strongest mitigation is your age.
I take account the sentencing guidelines for attempted murder, and in terms of
categorisation this offence is in Level 2 and has caused serious psychological harm,
although it is not known how long term that psychological harm to A will be. I would
place this offence as falling mid-way between the top two categories of Level 2,
which would give a starting point for a determinate sentence mid-way between that
for those categories for a first-time adult offender; I assess that starting point as being
one of 18 years. I have regard to the fact that the length of time you are in a custodial
environment will have a greater impact upon you than upon an adult. I must also have
regard to your welfare under the Definitive Guideline for sentencing youths. This also
provides that the starting point should be considerably lower for teenagers aged 15
and above – one half to three quarters of the starting point for an adult - and lower still
for an offender aged 14 at the time of the offence (which is what you were). I
therefore take a far lower starting point than the one given in the guidelines for an
adult.
I therefore sentence you to an extended sentence of detention under section 226B of
the Criminal Justice Act 2003 for a period of 14 years. This sentence is comprised of a
custodial term of 10 years and an extension period of 4 years.
For the custodial term, I have taken a starting point of 8 years to take into account
your age. I have adjusted it upwards, to reflect the aggravating and mitigating factors
(other than your age) to a term of 10 years. Once you become eligible to be
considered for release on licence, the Parole Board will only do so if they consider
that it is safe to do so. You would, once released, be on licence. The extension period
is to ensure that you remain on licence for a longer period than you otherwise would,
due to the need to protect the public from the significant risk of serious harm. This
extended period of licence begins when the licence period of the custodial term ends
(which is after 10 years), and lasts until the end of the extended licence period. The
total length of sentence is therefore one of 14 years.
The time that you have spent in custody since the offence itself will count towards
that custodial term, and I am told that this is 234 days. If that total is wrong, this can
be corrected administratively without the need for a further hearing.
The reports recommend that you spend as much of the custodial term as possible at
the same secure unit where you are currently held, which represents the best chance of
your being rehabilitated. I endorse those recommendations.
I impose no separate penalty on count two in relation to possession of the knife on school premises. The relevant victim surcharge applies.