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'Goth' murderer's sentence reduced

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daffy654 | 11:31 Wed 29th Oct 2008 | News
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/ 7696709.stm

The original sentence should have been increased in my opinion.Feral scum like these lads should not be allowed to appeal the length of sentences.
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agreed!
Shocking.
well i can only think this is some sort of blessing for Sophie's mum.

maybe now, she can grieve at peace instead of having those scum bleating about the unfairness of it all from prison.

i regularly see her (the mum- obviously) and she looks dreadful. mybe now she'll get some sort of closure on all this?
I don't think she'll ever get closure BOO. My Dad was beaten up severely about 16 years ago. I still get flash backs even though he is now dead.
No, more than likely not ummm- maybe my words were wrong there, but i'd like to think that she must be relieved on some level that at least that aspect of this horrific business is over?
I get ya. Yes hopefully it's one aspect over.
Why were the sentences reduced?

How does it work in the court of appeal? I really don't understand this, and there's no clue in the BBC report.
No idea SP- no idea. Maybe the scummy family will be now laughing and joking about it like they were whilst these people were being questioned, whilst they were in court and like they were when they caught sight of Sophie's brother in a local chip shop.
One of the principals that makes this country's law so admired around the world is that it is blind.

The penalty for a crime is not dependant on press coverage or the baying mob outside.

It is proportionate to other crimes and is not dependant on whether the judge is having a bad day or not.

That is why it is importantant that sentences can be appealed by those convicted and why it was also such a step forward to allow the prosecution to appeal them too.

As it happens this is only a very minor change and the appeal of one of them was dismissed outright.

You don't say what brings you to your opinion that they should not be allowed to appeal. So I assume it's your moral outrage.

That's a very bad basis to run a legal system on as it is arbitary.

Arbitary justice is a contradiction in terms.
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They were convicted of a crime and sentenced to a certain amount of time in prison.I don't understand why they are allowed to appeal the length of that sentence.If they were innocent and they were appealing the conviction that would be a different matter.
i'm with daffy here on this one...

i know next ot nothing about law and how it works so bear with me in my simplistic views here...

If, as in this case, your sentence is lowered, does that mean that the crime they commited is somehow lessened in some way?
Because Judges make mistakes.

They have to pronounce sentences that are proportionate to other crimes and be within set guidelines.

Sometimes they get it wrong.

In this case a senior judge has decided that the first judge got it wrong by a very small amount in one case and not at all in the second.

I rather assume that if you were convicted of a travelling at 40 in a 30mph zone and sentenced to a 5 year ban you'd expect to be able to appeal.

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I have never learned to drive so that analogy won't work with me,sorry.
I just think that as usual the victims are the ones that have to suffer more as the case is again dragged through the courts and press.If we had far stricter sentencing guidelines there would be less need for convicted criminals to appeal.
You're probably right jake, this is an emotive topic for me. Sophie's murder really knocked our little area for six and sickened the vast majority of the locals- so maybe i am biased here.

Somehow I can't equate wanting a driving sentance to the murder of a young woman by a pack of low lives, who have not shown the merest hint of remorse since they killed her. Indeed, as i've said, they and their families seemed to find the whole tragedy amusing.

And I do know what i'm talking about re their "humour", as my daughter was the one with Sophie's brother in a local chip shop when these relatives decided to take the pi$$ out of her murder.
It is especially unfortunate when the outcome is a minimal adjustment or a rejection.

I don't know what the exact process is but I think there needs to be a review and it established that there are grounds for an appeal and that it's not simply a waste of time.

Unfortunately you don't tend to see that in the news reports.

I know that a driving offense is not equatable with a murder but the point is whatever the offense it must not depend on the personal whim of the Judge.

Otherwise the law might become a lottery and we'd be back in the seventeenth century with Judge Jeffries hanging people for stealing loaves of bread.
Aye, I get you Jake :-)

The whole appeal thing, just seemed a farce to me, the local community and obviously Sophie's family and I assume a massive drain on taxpayers money.
Personally I don't think showing justice to be fair and correct and confirming one sentence and (mostly) the second is a waste of money.

I doubt it took more than a day and wouldn't have involved witnesses.

Note that the story is trying to manipulate you though.

Headline "Sentence reduced"

Body of story however doesn't really justify that though does it?

Don't know if you read the whole thing but many will not - rather cynical "cornflake spitter" I feel - Would have liked to think the BBC was a bit better than that - but alas no
Great pity we no longer have the death sentence.
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I did indeed read the whole story jake,I also read it on other news sites.My point was that if the sentencing guidelines were stricter then there would be no need for anyone to appeal them.There is no need to get insulting and call me a 'cornflake spitter'.
If there was a vote in the UK about the
death penalty ..99% would vote for it
coming back ..also people would think
about kicking the life out of an innocent
person ...as it would be thier life at the
end of a rope ...do the crime ..serve
the time ....

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