Jail term of Luton triple-murderer to be reviewed after MP's referral
The jail term given to a man who murdered his mother and two siblings as part of a plan to kill 30 children is to be reviewed after an intervention by an MP who claimed it was unduly lenient.
Nicholas Prosper, 19, was jailed for life last month with a minimum term of 49 years after he admitted murdering Juliana Falcon, 48, Kyle Prosper, 16, and Giselle Prosper, 13.
The murders were part of his wider plan to storm a morning assembly at his former primary school with a shotgun and 'cause the biggest massacre of the 21st century'.
The attorney general's office confirmed on Wednesday that the sentence had been referred to the court of appeal.
It comes after the Conservative shadow justice minister Kieran Mullan referred the sentence to the attorney general's office under the unduly lenient sentence scheme on the day Prosper was jailed.
'It will be argued that Prosper ought to have been given a whole-life order,' a spokesperson for the attorney general said on Wednesday. 'It is now for the court to decide whether to increase the sentence.'
Passing sentence last month, the high court judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told Luton crown court that she had met her duty to the public with the 49-year minimum term, rather than using 'the sentence of last resort' and jailing him for the rest of his life.
Mullan welcomed the referral to the court of appeal, adding in a post on X: 'These were the most heinous crimes deserving of the most severe penalty a court can give.'
Rules were changed in 2022 to allow defendants aged between 18 and 20 to receive whole-life orders in exceptional circumstances, but none of the orders imposed since then have been on criminals in that age bracket.
Luton crown court heard how Prosper had shot his family dead at their home in Luton after a violent struggle and how it was part of a wider plan to carry out a mass shooting at St Joseph's Catholic primary school.
His plan was months in the making. Prosper surveilled St Joseph's, taking images of staff and students from the school's website and noting times of lessons and assembly.
The day before the murders, he bought a shotgun from an online seller for £650 after he 'made a high-quality forgery of a shotgun certificate or licence'.
He had planned to murder his family while they slept on Friday 13 September, and then leave the home at about 8.30am to travel to St Joseph's to carry out the attack. However, his plans were disrupted when his family realised that something was wrong. After they challenged him, there was a violent struggle.
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