A minimum term of 52 years in prison to be served by a man who murdered three girls was not “unduly lenient”, the attorney general announced on Friday. For that reason, Lord Hermer KC said he would not be inviting the Court of Appeal to consider increasing the sentences of indefinite detention passed last month on Axel Rudakubana, 18, for three murders and 10 attempted murders at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in Southport last summer.
In my view, Hermer would have received a very dusty answer from the appeal court if he had argued that what he described as the “second longest sentence imposed by the courts in English history” was lenient — let alone unduly lenient or, in his reformulation, a “gross error”.
As Mr Justice Goose emphasised in sentencing Rudakubana, “it is likely that he will never be released and that he will be in custody for all his life”. The judge did not explain why this should be but there is little chance that a man who has spent more than half a century cut off from society could be safely released into whatever the world has in store for us in the late 2070s.
Of course, there may be some who would have set Rudakubana’s minimum term higher. Goose did not explain how he had calculated it, beyond explaining that defendant’s guilty pleas on the first day of the trial allowed for “some small discount”. But a whole life order is not available for those whose crimes, however serious, are committed when they are under 18.
True, the beleaguered attorney general must make sure his decision is not open to challenge in the courts. But was “careful consideration of independent legal advice and consultation with leading criminal barristers and the Crown Prosecution Service” really necessary before Hermer could reach a conclusion that should have been blindingly obvious?