MURDERERS will no longer receive automatic life sentences under proposals in the first review of the law on killing for 50 years, The Times has learnt.
Tony Blair will outline within weeks controversial plans for a new definition of murder to exclude crimes such as mercy-killings or to create new categories of murder. The move will anger MPs and victims’ groups who believe that murder should always attract a life sentence. It will be seized on by the Tories, who last night called the proposals “inappropriate”.
The Government, which is sensitive to any charge of going soft on crime, made clear that the review will leave the mandatory life sentence for the most serious killings. However, a new definition of murder could exclude crimes such as domestic killings or accidental killings in a street brawl, which at present attract a life sentence.
Ministers will also examine creating categories of murder, with different sentences to reflect the degrees of severityfrom depraved killings to mercy-killings to put loved ones out of suffering.
The review will be overseen by Downing Street and will involve several government departments, led by the Home Office, with a key role for the Law Commission. A consultation paper is expected by the end of the year with a final report by the end of next year.
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The review was backed by Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, who said that he opposed sentences which forced judges to impose penalties that did not match the crime.
Britain’s most senior judge, speaking at the publication of the Sentencing Guidelines Council annual report, said: “I’m not in favour of mandatory sentences, full stop.”
Judges discretion on setting the time to be served by murderers is limited by the tariffs introduced by David Blunkett, when he was Home Secretary.
These set a starting point of 15 years for murders, rising to 30 years for killers of police officers, murderers who used guns and for those killing for personal gain or with a racial motive. Serial killers, child murderers and terrorists should remain in jail until they die.
The Home Office said last night: “We will be announcing a way forward for the murder review shortly. Whatever happens we will not compromise on the mandatory life sentence for murder.”
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David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “The public expect murderers to be punished severely so there is no reason why mandatory sentences should be abolished.”
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