Yesterday (18th February 2014) courts ruled that a ‘life’ prison sentence will now mean ‘life’. Before, the Europen Court of Human Rights had said that the sentence would breach their human rights and ruled against it.
Originally they were considering three murder cases, with consideration for a review after 25 years. This was firstly met with a 40 year sentence for the McLoughlin case but has now been increased to a whole life tariff. The Newell case has also been given a whole life sentence, despite his appeal calling it ‘manifestly excessive’. These sentences will be reserved for the most serious of cases and there are strict guidelines on how whole life sentences will be served.
The sentences for these cases were held back until the verdict on this was passed, for the possibility of serving them a whole life sentence. At present 53 people are serving whole life sentences, only one of which is female; Rosemary West, a serial killer. Two of the more recent murderers to receive the whole life sentence are April Jones’ killer; Mark Bridger and Dale Cregan who killed two female police officers; PC Nicola Huges and PC Fiona Bone.
What do you think of the life sentence? Let us know by voting in the poll on the Her Campus CCCU homepage, or by tweeting us @HerCampusCCCU