Introduction
On 1st February 2016, (soon to be ex) PC Adrian Goldsmith was jailed for life, for the murder of Jill Goldsmith, his wife.
In the early hours of 26th March 2015, PC Goldsmith called 999 to report that Mrs Goldsmith had tried to kill him. Police Officers attended and found him there with a knife and a piece of broken glass.
His wife “was found dead in the foetal position in a pool of blood in their porch, had more than 70 injuries“. PC Goldsmith also had some injuries.
There was a trial, in which he said it was self-defence. The jury rejected this (seemingly after he had admitted inflicting some of the injuries on himself) and found him guilty of murder.
Sentence
The only sentence for murder is that of life imprisonment – the only question for the Judge is what the tariff, the minimum period of time that PC Goldsmith must spend in prison before being released, should be.
We have a fact sheet on how tariffs are calculated. Here, the starting point is 15 years. It looks like none of the aggravating features were present, apart from the attempt to conceal his guilty which some may consider to be such. Neither are any of the mitigating ones, apart from a ‘lack of premeditation’.
On the face of it, there was no reason to move much above or below the starting point of 15 years, which was the sentence that the Judge actually passed.
For that reason, we would not expect an appeal to be successful. PC Goldsmith will be dismissed from the police force shortly (if he hasn’t already).