Review 2011: Defendants and the Courts

For 2011 we decided to look not just at the victims of homicide in London but also the defendants who have been arrested, charged and put on trial.

The year has seen several major convictions: the suspected serial killer John Sweeney was given a whole life sentence for two murders, seven teenagers were jailed for killing 16 year-old Nicholas Pearton and two gang members were convicted of shooting the 16 year-old schoolgirl Agnes Sina-Inakoju dead at a pizza shop.

More easily forgotten are the acquittals of nine men of the murder of 20 year-old David Cauchi Lechmere. Not guilty verdicts are for obvious reasons not given the prominence of guilty verdicts, unless it is a particularly notorious case.

So throughout the year we attempted to add each conviction or acquittal to a database in the hope that it might shed light on the workings of the justice system.

Now for the basics. There are 181 defendants, of which 174 were charged with murder and seven with manslaughter. But how did their cases end up? Here’s the obligatory pie chart.

Of the 174 defendants charged with murder, 37 ended up convicted of manslaughter (21 of those by pleading guilty), 14 were convicted of a lesser offence (not homicide) and 37 were acquitted of all charges (one was acquitted by reason of insanity). Three were found unfit to stand trial.

Only one of the seven defendants charged with manslaughter was acquitted (two pleaded guilty, four were convicted).

The punishment for murder is always a life sentence – the only variation is in the minimum term set by the judge before the defendant can apply for parole. The starting point for this minimum term is 15 years but it is increased depending on aggravating features such as the weapon used, the motive for the murder and the number of victims.

Disregarding those defendants who have not yet been sentenced, and the one defendant who was sentenced to a whole life term, the average minimum term appears to be just over 22 years and four months.

As for manslaughter, there are many more options. Three defendants were jailed for life with minimum terms of 20, 16 and 7 years. Four were given sentences of ‘imprisonment for public protection (IPP), which is similar to a life sentence but with a shorter minimum term. Twenty-four were given ‘determinate’ sentences of imprisonment (with release on parole after serving half), six were detained under the Mental Health Act and two walked free from court with suspended sentences (both were cases of ‘mercy killing’).

Another interesting statistic is that a quarter of all defendants were teenagers.

More than two thirds of defendants knew the person they were accused of killing (129 vs 52). The figure of 52 ‘stranger’ murders also includes those cases where the defendant first met the victim on the day of the attack. The number of random stranger murders is far less.

The breakdown of how the defendants knew their victim is roughly illustrated by this pie chart.

Finally we looked at the length of time it took from the date of the offence to the date the verdict was announced, rounding up to the next month (i.e one month 14 days is recorded as two months).

Generally cases are resolved in about a year, but there are some that take much longer. This is usually because the killer has not been identified, as in the case of James Citro, who murdered Nijole Siskeviciene in 1998 but was not convicted until October 2011.

We also tried to monitor which cases were associated with alcohol use, drugs, mental health and suspected gang links. This tends to be much more subjective, although it was of interest that 48 of the 181 defendants were accused of murders that were said to have gang links (either the victim or the accused was suspected to be a member of a gang).

Emergency medicine and the murder rate

There are several possible explanations for the decrease in the murder rate in London over the last decade: longer sentences, better living standards, better policing and detective work, a decline in drug use, or perhaps just a greater respect for human life in general.

All have a part to play, but it is easy to overlook the role of emergency medicine in saving the lives of victims of serious assaults who would otherwise be added to the homicide statistics.

One of those survivors is Daniel Alaile, who was 16 when he was stabbed in the chest while making his way home from a birthday party in Beckton, east London, in January 2010.

The knife penetrated his left ventricle, causing massive internal bleeding. He had just ten minutes before his brain died of oxygen starvation.

Five miles away the London Air Ambulance took off from the top of the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.

A stab victim being flown from Ilford, east London, to the Royal London Hospital. Photo by David Levene

Within seconds of its arrival Daniel was undergoing a major operation called a thoracotomy, right there at the roadside. His chest was cut open, the damaged left ventricle was sewn up and his heart restarted using a shot of adrenaline.

Although he was left wheelchair bound as a result of a blood-clotting disorder, Daniel would give evidence at the Old Bailey 16 months later. It could easily have been a murder trial, rather than attempted murder.

That year, 2010, the Air Ambulance attended 1,981 incidents in total. They included 318 stabbings and 73 shootings. The crew performed 26 thoracotomies, an average of one a fortnight. They have already exceeded that for 2011.

Long-term success rates for those who undergo the procedure are running at 18 per cent – meaning four or five people survive what would otherwise be fatal injuries. In the context of roughly 120 murders last year (down from more than 200 in 2003) it is a small but not insignificant proportion.

Formed in 1989, the London Air Ambulance now seems like a prototype ‘Big Society’ venture. It is a registered charity and has to find £2.2m a year just to keep going, including sponsorship from Virgin, HSBC and local businesses as well as fundraising events.

It is also a pioneering enterprise. In 1993 it became the world’s first medical service to successfully carry out a thoracotomy at the scene of the attack. Based at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, the helicopter can attend a patient anywhere within the M25 within 15 minutes. That includes even crowded public spaces like Trafalgar Square or the busy Euston Road.

The emergency services are also likely to benefit from medical improvements being developed in the battle zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, as featured in the fascinating programme ‘Frontline Medicine’ on BBC 2 last month.

In some cases casualties are given more than 150 units of blood (the human body usually contains between 10 and 12 units) as well as blood plasma and clotting factors. As a result they are saving a quarter of those expected to die, compared to rates for civilians of around five per cent.

Soldiers are trained to take act quickly to help their injured squadmates by stopping blood loss as soon as possible and ensuring they get treatment within the so-called ‘Platinum Ten Minutes’ (better than the old-style ‘Golden Hour’).

While this isn’t directly applicable to the streets of London, clinical trials of new blood transfusion procedures are now underway in England and Wales, including at the Barts and The London Trauma Centre, which includes the London Air Ambulance (also known as The Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS)).

At the moment the helicopter cannot carry blood supplies because of regulations concerning tracking of supplies and their storage at the correct temperature. However this could soon change. The Barts and The London NHS Trust say they are ‘close’ to resolving the issues and should have good news in ‘the very near future.’

This would give victims of knife and gunshot injuries an even better chance of survival. And while it doesn’t solve the problem of people using knives and guns on the streets of London, it at least reduces the human cost of crime.

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Recommended reading:

The excellent website of the London Air Ambulance provides much more information on this vital service and how you can help raise money to keep it going.

Photographer David Levene spent eight months with the team as they responded to emergency situations across the capital. The Guardian featured 16 of his pictures, including the one above.

‘Hate Crime’ Murders

This week it was announced that life sentences for the murder disabled and transgender victims will be brought up to the same level as other ‘hate crimes’.

It means judges will use a 30 year starting point – rather than 15 – for deciding the minimum term to be served before parole.

This brings it in line with murders motivated by hostility towards race, religion and sexual orientation, as well as murder for gain, double murders, gun murders, murders of police or prison officers and murder with a sexual or sadistic motivation. By contrast, murders involving the use of knives brought to the scene attract 25 year starting points and the less serious cases remain at 15 years.

Of course this doesn’t mean that murderers of disabled and transgender victims have been getting away with half the sentences of other hate crime killers. Judges have the power to increase or decrease the minimum term based on the circumstances of the case, including the vulnerability of the victim. There also remains the fact that evidence is required to prove that the killing was aggravated by hostility based on the victim’s disability or gender. In some cases the reason for the murder remains unclear.

Some cases from the archives:

In September this year Leon Fyle, 23, was jailed for a minimum of 21 years for the the murder of transsexual Destiny Lauren. Fyle strangled her and took her mobile phone and jewellery after visiting her flat in Kentish Town in 2009.

The same month two men and a woman were given minimum terms of between 21, 20 and 18 years for the murder of Gemma Hayter in Warwickshire. She was abused for years before being tortured to death and dumped by the side of a railway line.

In 2007 James Hopkins, 42, was jailed for a minimum of 17 years for the murder of transsexual Robyn Browne. The judge found that he went there to steal her property, stabbed her nine times at her flat in Marylebone in 1997. The guidelines for minimum terms did not apply because the killing took place before 2003.

The murder of Kellie Telesford in Thornton Heath in 2007 remains unsolved. An 18 year-old man was charged with murder but was acquitted after a trial in 2008.

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For a run-down on how sentencing is decided in murder cases see our blog on Murder Law.

On ‘Racist Murders’: Evidence Required

The murder of Danny O’Shea in east London last week highlighted one particularly divisive issue – when can you classify a murder as racially aggravated?

There have been questions – particularly from what you might call ‘right wing organisations’ such as the BNP – as to what exactly distinguishes the murder of a black victim by a gang of white attackers from the murder of a white victim by a gang of black attackers.

While the mother of Danny O’Shea has explicitly stated that her son’s killing was not a racist murder, it is suggested that the mainstream media are all too happy to leap in with the term when whites are responsible. Similarly, it is claimed, they are often happy to use the term ‘honour killing’ when its application to a particular case is debatable.

Aside from whether this is an issue of ‘disingenuous language’ used by the media, there is specific guidance on what does or doesn’t amount to racial aggravation. Namely that:

a) at the time of the offence (or shortly before or after), the offender demonstrates to the victim hostility based on the victim’s membership (or presumed membership) of a racial or religious group, or

b) the offence is motivated wholly or partly by hostility towards members of a racial or religious group based on their membership (or presumed membership) of that group.

Demonstrating hostility is not defined by the Act. The ordinary dictionary definition of hostile includes simply being “unfriendly”. Proving this limb of the offence requires evidence of words or actions which show hostility toward the victim. However, this hostility may be totally unconnected with the “basic” offence which may have been committed for other, non-racially or religiously motivated reasons. For example, an assault which takes place because of an argument over a parking place, but where the offender then utters racial abuse to the victim of the assault would come within the scope of this part of section 28.

If a murder is found to be racially aggravated then the starting point for the minimum term to be served in prison as part of a life sentence is 30 years. This places it on the same level as aggravation based on religious or sexual orientation.

In practice, it usually requires strong racist language to be used in the course of the attack. The police have not revealed any detailed information about what was said or done during the attack on Danny O’Shea, and (more to the point) have in fact stated that ‘there is nothing to suggest Danny’s murder is racially aggravated’.

This could change. Or it could not. Speculation on the limited facts available, in a bid to put forward a particular political point of view, is not particularly helpful given that the investigation is ongoing. An 18 year-old man is dead and the priority is to ensure his killer or killers are brought to justice.

• List of deaths with a known or suspected racial element since 1991, compiled by the Institute of Race Relations

• Racial murders: Nearly half the victims are white – Guardian article from 2009 on Home Office figures

UPDATE: This is the murdermap case summary after the case came to trial. There was no mention of racism at all – the victim was ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’.

On June 20, 2012, detectives charged nine men with murder and conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm: Paul Johnson, 33 (3.03.79) of Harrow, Kevin Richards, 32 (31.12.79) of Willesden, O’Neil Wareham, 29 (16.09.82) of Harrow, Andrew Johnson, 35 (1.04.77) of Harrow; Ferron Perue, 24 (29.09.88) of Birmingham, Nugent Rowe, 29 (1.04.83) of Pinner, Christopher Nathaniel, 40 (9.03.72) of Poplar, Paul Boadi, 34 (24.08.78) of Poplar, and David Hylton, 47 (20.04.65) of central London. A tenth man, Scott Marius, 44, of Maida Vale, was charged with murder in August.

Nathaniel and Boadi were business partners in the NVA Entertainment group which manages the careers of footballers, musicians and other celebrities. He was most well known for negotiating a deal involving footballer Ashley Cole and the rapper Jay-Z.

They went on trial at the Old Bailey on February 6, 2013. The prosecution case was that Nathaniel and Boadi organised a revenge attack after Boadi was robbed of his Blackberry mobile phone by a group of black youths in the same area of Canning Town on November 27, 2011.

Witnesses claimed Boadi shouted ‘this won’t be the end of it’ after the incident.

On 2 December 2011 the group travelled to the scene in a hired minibus driven by Scott Marius, while Nathaniel and Boadi travelled separately by Mercedes.

Nobody witnessed the stabbing but jurors heard that Danny had no involvement in the robbery and was ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

Nathaniel posted a Twitter message hours later saying: ‘The element of surprise is such a beautiful thing.’ He denied this had anything to do the killing and claimed it was a reference to a potentially lucrative deal with four Premiership clubs.

The sports agent claimed that he asked Richards to get a group together to find a ‘peaceful solution’ and retrieve the phone. He denied any intention to get revenge.

His barrister James Wood QC said: ‘Richards indicated he knew how to deal with this kind of situation and he knew how to do this in a peaceable way.

‘What Mr Nathaniel wanted to happen was to be an effective intervention by adult black males. The kids were to be located and Richards as a skilled intermediary would speak to them and attempt to bring some calm and reconciliation to the area.

‘Violence, knives and certainly murder played no part at all in his mind. It was to be a disaster.

‘Those involved in the robbery were never located and some brutal idiot for reasons of his own took out a knife which nobody knew he had and perpetrated a brutal unprovoked killing of a young white man uninvolved in any robbery in a chase which was unplanned and unintended with a tragic outcome.’

Several of the defendants blamed Rowe for the fatal stabbing and told the court that he boasted about ‘shanking’ someone when they returned to the van.

On 13 June 2013 Rowe was convicted of murder. Nathaniel and the seven others were acquitted of all charges. The following day Rowe was jailed for life with a minimum of 24 years before parole.

murdermap

Contempt of Court: Open Justice?

The idea behind the 1981 Contempt of Court Act was pretty honourable. Everybody deserves a fair trial and to have their guilt decided by a jury rather than be convicted by the ‘Press’.

Since then it has come under increasing pressure from the right to freedom of expression, first in the printed media and more recently the internet, which allows anyone to bellow an opinion in complete ignorance of the Act.

Attorney Generals have generally turned a blind eye to this conflict. Now Dominic Grieve has decided to join the battle with a series of prosecutions. In July the Sun and the Mirror were fined a total of £68,000 over their reporting of the Joanna Yeates murder case. In one year Grieve has brought more prosecutions than his predecessors over a decade (read the full text of his recent speech here).

At a time dominated by press misbehaviour and the Leveson Inquiry, perhaps this determination is to be admired, even if it isn’t possibly to prosecute every prejudicial tweet or blog. The hope is that the message goes out that a fair trial is paramount. Fair enough. Perhaps it would be a good thing if the Act was better known by the public.

But at its heart the Contempt of Court is based on a delusion that jurors begin a case equipped with entirely open minds. As if they were twelve virgins who must be carefully protected from the evil, perverted world outside.

Every fact they are given is carefully controlled. They are given access to some some pieces of information, but kept in ignorance of others. They are sent out of the room while the judge decides what they should or shouldn’t hear. They are told not to investigate the case themselves, or carry out research on the internet. They are told to decide a case based on the evidence presented, no matter how poorly or partially presented.

These instructions now take up ten minutes at the start of the case, and are usually rammed home again in summary at the end of each day.

The problem is that everybody in the court knows that it is a complete farce (or as one journalist put it, ‘a comfortable fiction’). The jury almost certainly do go home and look the case up on the internet, or chat to their partners about it, or do a bit of research into a subject they felt wasn’t properly explained. They certainly talk about the case in small groups when not all twelve of them are present.

Where is the research showing this is disastrous for justice? The great miscarriages of justice have tended to be based on flawed police investigations and prosecutions rather than prejudicial reporting.

All this isn’t a necessarily a problem with the Contempt of Court Act. Rather it is a lurking flaw in the justice system itself. Jurors are not virgins, and neither should they be. It is accepted that they can bring their past experience to bear on a case, even if they are a lawyer or a doctor or a police officer (providing they haven’t been excluded from serving on the case for this reason). To this extent they are trusted to approach the case fairly.

So why can’t a jury be trusted to hear the arguments for and against the relevance of a piece of evidence, such as previous convictions? Why can’t the whole process be held in the open?

The argument is that without the Contempt of Court Act the powerful media would run rampant over the course of justice. But it seems a little absurd to trust juries only part of the way. We don’t try to balance juries with regard to gender, sexual persuasion, past experience or political orientation, so why do we pretend that we can protect them from the information and opinion bombarding them every second of every day?

There must be a better way. After all, the Contempt of Court Act came about as a result of the Sunday Times’ reporting of the thalidomide scandal when it was under injunction. Given that the trend is now towards more information, not less, perhaps it is time for the system to change with the times, rather than the other way round.