We looked at the case of Aaron Barley earlier this year. It was a horrible case; Mr Barley had attacked and killed two members of a family who had gone out of their way to help him. The motiveless killing is still unexplained.
Mr Barley got a life sentence with a tariff of 30 years. The Judge had started with 35 years and reduced it due to the credit for a plea of guilty.
The Attorney-General referred the case to the Court of Appeal as being unduly lenient, the argument being that he should have got a whole life tariff, or at least a longer tariff.
It did not seem an obvious case for such a reference, but on 21st December 2017, the Court of Appeal agreed with the AG and increased the tariff to 35 years.
We haven’t seen the transcript yet with the full reasons, so it’s hard to comment on what happened,, but they will probably be published next year.