Thursday 8 November 2007

Teenagers who terrorised and murdered disabled man have sentences reduced

(Ed: Anyone care to try to explain this?)

Two Cheshire teenagers who terrorized a vulnerable man before beating him to death and throwing his body in a river, have had their life sentences cut.

Craig Dodd, aged 17, will now serve a minimum of three-and-a-half years in prison and Ryan Palin, 15, three years.

The pair were dubbed as "feral" when they were jailed for life for the manslaughter of Raymond Atherton, 40, in Warrington.

They beat and urinated on Mr Atherton before dumping him in the River Mersey.

Despite the severity of their crime, Lord Justice Rix overturned the life terms and replaced them with sentences of detention for public protection, giving each a minimum tariff to serve before parole can be considered. Read more
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1 comment:

Peter Kirk said...

(Chelmsford)

Your post title uses the word "murdered", but the point is that the boys were not found guilty of murder. I can't understand why not. They don't in fact seem to have been charged with murder. Maybe they did not intend to kill, but that is not usually a defence in cases like this. But there may be legal issues which are not well understood or not public.