[2008] EWCA Crim 2500

The sentencing provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 s.269 and Sch.21 were not intended to be applied inflexibly. It could not be right that a man who wished to have his wife murdered, and arranged and agreed to pay for it, should have a lower minimum term starting point than the man he employed to carry out the killing, merely because the facts did not fit the specific 2003 Act high seriousness criteria, especially in circumstances where it was the husband who in fact carried out the murder.

CA (Crim Div) (Lord Judge LCJ, Thomas LJ, Leveson LJ, Owen J, Christopher Clarke J)

29/10/2008