Triple murderer will not be given whole-life order, Court of Appeal rules
The 19-year-old was also sentenced for weapons offences, having plotted a mass shooting at his former primary school.
The Solicitor General referred Prosper's sentence to the Court of Appeal in April, with barristers telling a hearing in London that a whole-life term was a 'just punishment' for the 'exceptional' crimes.
Barristers for Prosper, who is due to be released in his late 60s at the earliest, said the sentence 'cannot be said to be unduly lenient'.
In a ruling, the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, sitting with Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Wall, said that Prosper's sentence was 'itself a very severe sentence for a 19-year-old'.
She said: 'These were undoubtedly offences of the utmost gravity, with multiple features incorporating disturbing, recurrent themes around school shootings.'
She continued: 'Had the offender been 21 or over at the time of the offending, a whole-life order would undoubtedly have been made.'
She added that the sentencing judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, was right to conclude that the 'enhanced exceptionality test' of whether to pass a whole-life term on an 18-to-20-year-old was 'not met on the facts'.
She said: 'Parliament chose to set what is already a very high threshold for a whole-life order for an adult, even higher for a young offender.'
She concluded: 'Appalling though these crimes were, we are not persuaded that anything less than a whole-life order was unduly lenient.'
Prosper, who would have become the first person aged under 21 to be given a whole-life order if his sentence was increased, watched proceedings via a video link from HMP Belmarsh.
Whole-life orders are reserved for the most serious offences, with those handed the tariffs including Louis De Zoysa, who murdered Metropolitan Police Sergeant Matt Ratana in 2020, and Kyle Clifford, who murdered his ex-partner Louise Hunt, her sister Hannah Hunt and mother Carol Hunt last year.
Rules were changed in 2022 to allow younger defendants aged 18 to 20 to receive whole-life orders in exceptional circumstances, but no one in that age bracket has received the sentence since.
Reading out the judgment, Baroness Carr said that Prosper was 'deeply fascinated by notorious murders' and had 'started to plan emulating and indeed outdoing' the Sandy Hook school shooting in the United States.
The day before the killings, Prosper obtained a shotgun and 100 cartridges from a legitimate firearms dealer through a 'meticulously forged' gun licence, and planned to kill 34 people at a school, including 30 children.
He shot his mother in the early hours of September 13, placing a book named How To Kill Your Family on her legs, before shooting his sister.
Prosper then killed his brother, shooting him twice and stabbing him more than 100 times.
Prosper hid for more than two hours before flagging down police officers in a nearby street and showing them where he had hidden a loaded shotgun and 33 cartridges near playing fields.
Following his arrest, he was 'cheerful' and told police that he wished he had killed more people, Baroness Carr said.
Sentencing him at Luton Crown Court in March, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said that a whole-life term could only be given to someone in that age bracket if a court deemed 'that the seriousness of the combination of offences is exceptionally high'.
But she said that while Prosper was 'indisputably a very dangerous young man', the risk to the public was met with a life sentence.
The judge noted that both prosecution and defence barristers said that a whole-life term should not be imposed, and that he had not carried out the school shooting.
Tom Little KC, appearing for the Solicitor General on Wednesday, said in written submissions: 'The age of the offender and his guilty pleas, although relevant to the ultimate decision, did not inexorably lead to or mean that this was a case in which a whole-life order was not appropriate.'
David Bentley KC, for Prosper, said: 'The reality is that with the existing sentence, the earliest date he could actually be considered for parole is in his late 60s, and the dangerousness is covered by the life sentence.'
Following the ruling, the Solicitor General, Lucy Rigby, said: 'Nicholas Prosper's brutal murder of his family and plans to attack school children and teachers shocked the whole nation.
'Given the nature and scale of the intended attack, I received several requests under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme to consider his sentence.
'Following careful consideration, I concluded that Prosper's sentence should be referred to the Court of Appeal as it appeared unduly lenient.
'I respect the Court of Appeal's decision.
'My thoughts and deepest sympathies today are with Juliana, Giselle, and Kyle's loved ones, and everyone impacted by Prosper's crimes.'
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