Mr Justice Royce had set a total of nineteen and a half years after aggravating circumstances had been taken into account. He then had to consider mitigating factors. He said that Gafoor's age at the time of the crime and lack of pre-meditation provided some – albeit a small amount of mitigation. A guilty plea at the first opportunity entitles a defendant to a discount of one sixth. In this case that meant two and a half years. “There had been as far as the court was concerned uncertainty until the 4th July as to whether the defendant would indeed plead to murder,” opined Royce. “Although he had admitted the killing he had refused to answer other questions in interview about the circumstances. There is also material now before me confirming that the defendant post-sentence gave some assistance to the police in their investigation of how it came to be that innocent men were convicted of Lynette White’s murder.”

That was all the mitigating factors that Royce considered. He decided that it was sufficient to reduce the term that Gafoor should serve from nineteen and a half years by four years. He then had to discount the four months that Gafoor had already served on remand. This proved to be an academic exercise as he could not impose a tariff that was greater than the period likely to have been imposed by the Home Secretary prior to December 2002. He took the following guidelines of the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham, into account. 'My current practice is to take fourteen as the period actually be served for the ‘average’, ‘normal’ or unexceptional’ murder. This is longer than the period of twelve years which Lord Lane took as his norm ten years ago. I take this higher norm because I think the level of sentence, may have in the past, with some reason, have been considered too low; I think the recommended level has risen over the last decade.'

But this was not an average murder. It involved grossly excessive brutality – far more than as necessary to kill, which continued after White was unable to defend herself. This was a bestial crime and of course there was an additional aggravating factor that had not been considered by Bingham – understandably. “His [Bingham's] examples of aggravating factors do not include what I regard as the most serious aggravating factor in this case namely allowing innocent men to be convicted of the murder,” said Royce. “That is hardly surprising as it is such an unusual feature. If I took a starting point of twelve years and increased it by four and a half years for aggravating factors I would then reduce it to thirteen years to take account of mitigating factors including the plea. It would then be appropriate to deduct the time spent in custody on remand which is just short of four months. Accordingly the minimum term I specify in this case is twelve years and eight months. I make it clear that this does not mean the defendant will be released after that period. It means that the Parole Board can then consider whether it is safe to release him.”

This means that the tariff imposed on Gafoor – the real murderer of Lynette White – was significantly less than those imposed on the innocent Cardiff Three. Where is the justice in that?

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (December 26th 2008)