Sentenced By Judges
Since the European Court of Human Rights decision, only trial judges and the High Court have had the right to decide that a killer should never be released. In that time, there have been more than 20 reported instances of trial judges recommending that an offender should never be released. All but one of these has been convicted of murder.
Two of these killers have already appealed for the High Court to take a different view, but both have so far been unsuccessful. Two others have succeeded in their appeals, while a further three are currently appealing against both their convictions and their sentences. Two such inmates have since died in custody.
| Name | Nickname | Year | Died | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Glen | 2004 | - | Glen was employed as a hitman and in 2004 had been hired to murder Vincent Smart, but instead he murdered Mr Smart's friend Robert Bogle. After his trial, it was revealed that Glen had a previous conviction for murder. | |
| Andrezej Kunowski | 2004 | 2009 | A Polish murderer who was imprisoned in England. Kunowski murdered a 12-year-old Macedonian girl, Katerina Koneva, in West London in 1997. Kunowski died in Frankland Prison on 23 September 2009. | |
| Phillip Heggarty | 2004 | - | Convicted of murdering his friend, Derek Bennett, in a hammer attack in 2003. He later set fire to a Renault Laguna after placing Mr Bennett's body in it which was so severely burnt that it had to be identified by dental records. | |
| Thomas McDowell | 2004 | - | A psychopath who strangled and cut up a gay trainee rabbi with a ripsaw. McDowell throttled Andreas Hinz, then dumped his head, limbs and torso in bin bags in Camden, north London. McDowell suffered abuse as a child and grew up hating homosexuals. | |
| Mark Martin | Sneinton Strangler | 2005 | - | He killed three homeless women in Nottingham between December 2004 and January 2005, declaring his ambition to become "Nottingham's first serial killer". |
| Mark Hobson | 2005 | - | Murdered his girlfriend, her twin sister and an elderly couple in Yorkshire before going on the run with the whole nation's police looking for him. He was eventually arrested after being spotted hiding in bushes near a motorway service station. Pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to life imprisonment with the judge advising that his life sentence should mean exactly that. Hobson later appealed for a lower tariff to be set on the grounds that he merited some credit for admitting to the crimes in order to avoid a trial, but this was rejected by the Lord Chief Justice. | |
| William Horncy | 2005 | - | Achieved notoriety in 2005 when he was convicted of murdering millionaire Amarjit Chohan as well as Chohan's wife, mother-in-law and two sons in an effort to take over the Chohan family freight business to ship drugs into the UK. The bodies of Chohan's two sons were never found. | |
| Kenneth Regan | 2005 | - | Achieved notoriety in 2005 as he too was involved, with William Horncy, in the murder of millionaire Amarjit Chohan as well as Chohan's wife, mother-in-law and two sons, whose bodies were never found. He was a former drug dealer, who turned to being a Police supergrass to gain himself early release from prison for a prior crime. He murdered Amarjit Chohan and his family in an effort to take over the Chohan family freight business to ship drugs into the UK. | |
| Paul Culshaw | 2005 | - | A British convicted murderer and sex offender. In 2005, he was found guilty of murdering Clare Benson-Jowry, who had died in 2004. After his trial, it was revealed that Culshaw had previous convictions for crimes including rape, attempted murder and indecent assault. | |
| Glyn Dix | 2005 | - | Found guilty of murdering his wife Hazel, having stabbed her to death and chopped her body into 16 pieces at their home in Redditch, Worcestershire in the previous year. It was then revealed that he had already been out of prison on life licence following a previous conviction for murdering Pia Overbury in the 1970s. | |
| Daniel Gonzalez | Freddy Krueger Killer or Mummy's Boy Killer | 2006 | 2007 | A drug addict, inspired by horror films, who stabbed to death four randomly chosen people (including three pensioners) over a 24-hour period and tried to kill two more. His mother had previously begged for help from the authorities, chillingly (but rhetorically) asking in one letter if her son might "have to commit murder" before anyone would do something about him. He tried to escape conviction through reasons of insanity but was found guilty of murder and attempted murder and given six life sentences, with the judge advising that he should never be released from prison. He committed suicide in a mental hospital the following year. |
| Viktor Dembovskis | 2006 | - | A Latvian citizen who raped and murdered a 17-year-old neighbour as she walked home from school in west London, before fleeing back to Latvia. Dembovskis was deported from Latvia after a joint operation by British and Latvian police. It was revealed that Dembovskis had a string of convictions in Latvia stretching back 25 years including two rapes in the 1990s. Given his appalling record, the trial judge advised that Dembovskis should never be freed - a rare recommendation for someone guilty of a single murder. | |
| John McGrady | 2006 | - | A convicted rapist who strangled and mutilated a 15-year-old girl in London before dumping her dismembered remains in bin bags. He slit his wrists and confessed to his girlfriend after the attack, but his suicide bid was thwarted and he was successfully brought to justice. However, much was made in court of his refusal to co-operate with the police and other authorities, especially on the issue of how or why the teenager was in his flat at the outset, although police remain convinced she did not go willingly. The judge said that McGrady, who had previous convictions for raping and kidnapping women, was a highly dangerous predator and should never be released from prison. The victim's family later criticised heavily the nature of the media's distressingly over-descriptive reporting of the murder. McGrady later appealed for a lower minimum term to be set by the Court of Appeal, but this was rejected. | |
| Rahan Arshad | 2006 | - | Murdered of his wife and three children, who were found dead in their home in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, Greater Manchester in August 2006. | |
| David Tiley | 2007 | - | Two months after he was released from prison, he stabbed to death his disabled fiancée Susan Hale, who suffered from a degenerative brain disorder, and her carer Sarah Merritt. | |
| Michael Smith | 2007 | - | Attacked his victim with a bottle. This was a second life sentence, as he had already served time in prison for an earlier murder. The most recent murder occurred in Stafford, and he was convicted in 2007. | |
| Steve Wright | Suffolk Strangler | 2008 | - | Murdered five prostitutes in Ipswich in late 2006. Wright was found guilty of all five murders in February 2008. |
| Levi Bellfield | 2008 | - | Attacked three women, killing two in sexually motivated attacks between 2001 and 2004. In 2011, he was convicted of murdering Surrey teenager Amanda "Milly" Dowler nine years previously, and the trial judge in this case also sentenced Bellfield to life imprisonment with the recommendation that life should mean life. | |
| Douglas VinterM | 2008 | - | Strangled and murdered his wife Anne White in Normanby, Teesside, on 10 February 2008. He admitted the murder in court two months later, and was already on life licence having spent nine years in prison for a previous murder. Vinter applied to the High Court for lesser minimum term to be set, but this appeal was rejected in June 2009. | |
| Marc Chivers | 2009 | - | Strangled his ex-girlfriend Maria Stubbings with a dog lead in December 2008. He pleaded guilty to the crime in court 12 months later and was jailed for life. He had previously served 15 years in prison in Germany for murdering another ex-girlfriend and was deported to the UK in January 2008. Chivers had a string of previous convictions for some extreme cases of violent behaviour. | |
| Peter Tobin | 2009 | - | Convicted of the murder of Dinah McNicol in Margate, Kent in 1991. Tobin had already been convicted in Scotland for the murder that same year of Vicky Hamilton whose body was found in Tobin's back garden alongside that of McNicol, and also for the murder of Angelika Kluk in a Glasgow church in 2006. Tobin was already serving currently serving two concurrent prison sentences in Scotland (which does not have the whole life tariff) of 21 years and 30 years for the murders of Angelika Kluk and Vicky Hamilton respectively, when in December 2009 he was found guilty of Dinah McNicol's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment - this time with a recommendation that life must mean life. However, the minimum terms Tobin was already serving for the two other murders were effectively "whole life" sentences as he was over 60 years old when sentenced. | |
| Royston Jackson | 2010 | - | Convicted of the murder of convicted sex offender Gordon Boon in October 2008, after being released on licence two years earlier following his conviction for another murder he had committed in 1989. | |
| Peter Sutcliffe | Yorkshire Ripper | 2010 | - | The Yorkshire Ripper, who murdered 13 women and attacked seven others between 1975 and 1980 across West Yorkshire, plus two in Greater Manchester. He was caught by chance while sitting in his car with a prostitute and potential victim in Sheffield, and made a full confession to each attack to the police, even though they had only arrested him for having false number plates. At trial he pleaded guilty to manslaughter but was convicted of 13 murders and was jailed for life, however no tariff was ever set at the time. A whole life tariff imposed by High Court in 2010. |
| Ernest Wright | 2010 | - | Convicted of the execution-style murder of Neville Corby (aged 42) with a shotgun and the simultaneous attempted murder of Corby's partner. Had been previously convicted of murder in 1971 and served 26 years. | |
| Anthony Hardy | Camden Ripper | 2010 | - | Killing of three women to "satisfy depraved and perverted needs". |
| John Maden | 2010 | - | Drugged, raped and killed his 12-year-old niece at his Manchester home after luring her there on the pretext of babysitting. He had previously developed an obsession with violent pornography and images of extreme child abuse. | |
| Wilbert Dyce | 2010 | - | Convicted of a 1982 triple murder in which a mother and her two young daughters were killed. | |
| Stephen Griffiths | Crossbow Cannibal | 2010 | - | Convicted of murdering three women in Bradford, one murder involving the use of a crossbow. |
| John Sweeney | Canal killer | 2011 | - | Convicted of murdering two women whose bodies were found mutilated and dumped in canals in London and the Netherlands. |
| George Norman Johnson | 2011 | - | Convicted in 2011 of the premeditated murder of 89-year-old Florence Habesch in February that year to fund his drug addiction. Johnson already had a 1986 murder conviction. | |
| John Cooper | 2011 | - | Convicted in 2011 of two double murders in Pembrokeshire Wales during 1985 & 1989. | |
| David Baxendale | 2011 | - | Convicted in March 2011 of the murder by repeated stabbing of a woman in Nutfield, Surrey, in June 2010. Baxendale, who had a history of violence stretching back to around 1990, had previously been convicted of murder in Spain, where he had repeatedly stabbed his victim; for this crime he was sentenced to 11 years in prison at his trial in 2001 and served seven years of his sentence before being deported back to Britain. | |
| Andrew Dawson | 2011 | Convicted of the murder of John David Matthews and Paul Hancock in July 2010.He was out on licence from a previous murder conviction committed in the 1980s. | ||
| David Cook | 2012 | Convicted in 1988 of murder, Cook was released in 2009 after strangling a woman whilst on licence for robberies. Cook strangled a second victim whilst paroled, and the second judge gave him a whole life tarrif. | ||
| David Oakes | 2012 | Convicted and sentenced to a whole life term for the double murder, using a double-barrelled shotgun, of his ex-partner Christine Chambers and their two year old daughter following the breakdown of their relationship and just hours before a custody hearing to agree access rights to their daughter. Christine had been assaulted over a period of several hours before being shot. Oakes was said to be jealous and frustrated over the ending of the relationship and did not want another father figure in his daughter's life. | ||
| Stephen Farrow | 2012 | Farrow, a vagrant with a history of psychiatric illness, was convicted of the murders of Betty Yates (aged 77) and Rev. John Suddards (aged 59). Mr Justice Field, sentencing, said: "The sentence for murder is a mandatory life sentence and in respect of each count I pass a life sentence. I next have to consider whether you should be made the subject of a whole life sentence or whether a minimum term should be set. I am satisfied that in your case a whole life sentence is an appropriate sentence in each of these dreadful, horrific killings." |
Read more about this topic: List Of Prisoners With Whole-life Tariffs
Famous quotes containing the words sentenced and/or judges:
“I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.”
—Brendan Behan (1923–1964)
“In England the judges should have independence to protect the people against the crown. Here the judges should not be independent of the people, but be appointed for not more than seven years. The people would always re-elect the good judges.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)