R v Height and Anderson

(7 October 2008)

The appellants were sentenced by the Crown Court at Nottingham to life imprisonment with a minimum specified term of 24 years and 22 years respectively for murdering the 2nd appellant's wife. Both appealed against the sentence. The court of appeal dismissed the second appellant's application but reduced the 1st appellant's minimum term to 22 years.

The court of appeal also rejected that the suggestion that a correct reading of Section 269 and schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 had the effect of setting the starting point for the 2nd appellant at 15 years (as he was merely wanting to "get rid of her") whereas the 1st appellant at 30 years (as the motive was financial gain).

The court of appeal ruled that the criteria under schedule 21 which purported to identify cases where seriousness are "exceptionally high" or "particularly high" were not exhaustive:

"However we must say without apology that something must be wrong with the conclusion that the starting point for a man who wishes to have his wife murdered, and arranges and agrees to pay for it, should have a different starting point to the man he employs to carry out the killing, merely because no reference is made to this type of case in either paragraphs 4 or 5 of the schedule...The potential absurdity in this particular case is highlighted by the fact that on the approach to the statutory framework adopted in this case, the different starting points were applied, even when, in the end, it was the husband and not his paid associate who actually carried out the killing."

And that,

"The understandable error into which Judge Stokes fell was that he loyally focussed on the specific criteria and overlooked that there would be cases which, because of all the aggravating circumstances, would nevertheless make the seriousness "particularly high" even if none of the express criteria applied to it."

The court of appeal agreed to reduce the 1st appellant's sentence even though he did not have the same mitigation as the 2nd appellant (guilty plea). It was clear that, although the 1st appellant's participation in the crime was "complete", his actions "lacked the utter brutality displayed by Anderson to his wife and mother of his children" and he was not the prime mover or the leader, and "a fair balance between the various considerations would, for different reasons, produce the same minimum term".