Crossbow killer judge secured shorter sentence for youngest female terrorist
The judge who presided over crossbow killer Kyle Clifford's trial secured a shorter sentence for the UK's youngest female terrorist.
The Hon Mr Justice Joel Bennathan handed former soldier Clifford, 26, a whole life order at his sentencing for the murders of his ex-girlfriend Louise Hunt, her sister Hannah and her mother Carol.
However, he decided not to force Clifford to face his sentencing hearing via video link after he was left paralysed from the chest down when he shot himself with a crossbow in the aftermath of the killings on July 9 last year.
Despite that, it was suggested that he could have been restrained and forced to face the Cambridge Crown Court hearing through a video link.
Addressing the court, Mr Justice Bennathan said: 'As to whether I would order restraints so he [Kyle Clifford] should be brought to the video room… I have declined on the basis that the idea of a man in a wheelchair being put in restraints and potentially disrupting these proceedings... is simply not appropriate or suitable.
'If the defendant lacks the courage to face today, so be it – but I'm conscious part of this morning will be people paying tribute to the three women who died, and I'm not having that disrupted by anything.'
Since being called to the bar in 1985, Mr Justice Bennathan spent more than three decades largely at the criminal bar – mainly defending in trials and mounting appeals to the Court of Appeal, House of Lords then Supreme Court, Privy Council and the European Court of Human Rights.
In 2019, Mr Bennathan, then a QC, successfully slashed the sentencing of the UK's youngest female terrorist after comparing her to a child grooming gang victim.
Safaa Boular spurred on her sister and mother to launch a suicide bomb attack after she was arrested while trying to travel to Syria to join a terror group.
Boular was just 15 when she was wooed by Naweek Hussain, 32, a Coventry-born Islamic State fighter who urged the teenager to use grenades and guns in an attack on the British Museum.
Representing Boular, Mr Bennathan successfully cut the minimum term for the teenager's life sentence from 13 years to 11, telling the Court of Appeal that the teenager's age was 'central' to the case and comparing it to the Rochdale grooming trials.
Barristers in the UK are obliged to take on the next cases they are available to, regardless of their personal views on any potential clients.
Legal documents available online show Justice Bennatahn KC also represented Russell Bishop, the Babes in the Woods killer, as he unsuccessfully tried to block a retrial.
Bishop was acquitted of the murders of nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in Brighton in 1986, following a trial the following year. Yet the killer, who died in prison aged 55 in 2022, was convicted of their murders following a retrial in December 2018.
The Crown Prosecution Service applied to quash the 1987 acquittals based on new and forensic evidence which linked Bishop to the murders.
Reformed double jeopardy laws enabled the retrial to take place, but in 2017, as part of his argument, Mr Bennathan tried to suggest that the 'length of time' since the first trial had occurred would justify the Court of Appeal refusing a retrial.
However, Bishop went on to face trial the following year and received a life sentence with a minimum term of 36 years.
In another case, Mr Bennathan failed in his attempt to downgrade a murder conviction to manslaughter for a man who strangled his 74-year-old neighbour.
Patrick Curran, then 27, killed Joan Roddam at her home in Delabole, Cornwall, in 2003, when a court heard she was 'almost certainly' resisting his sexual advances.
In 2021, six years on from the 2015 verdict, Mr Bennathan argued that the conviction should be substituted for manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.
This was on the basis that a pre-trial psychiatric report had been based on inadequate information, partly due to Curran's difficulty in engaging with psychiatrists at the time.
However, Court of Appeal judges found the conviction was safe and there was no new evidence to the contrary.
On Tuesday, when asked if Sir Keir Starmer condemned the judge's decision to not force Clifford to be brought into court, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said: 'It will be up to the judge in the case to make a decision on when this power should and shouldn't be used in future.
'And I think our view is very much that it is the judge to decide.'
The spokesman added: 'We're going to bring clarity to the law and ensure those who refuse to attend would commit a contempt of court and face additional time of up to two years in prison.'
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said: 'Kyle Clifford is a coward for not appearing in person for his sentence.'
Commenting on Clifford's refusal to appear in court, Dame Harriet Baldwin, the Conservative MP for West Worcestershire said: 'I am very disappointed that the law does not force him to do this.'
Baroness Foster, a Tory peer, told GB News on Tuesday: 'Kyle Clifford's refusal to attend sentencing denies victims their moment of justice.'
Richard Tice, Reform UK's deputy leader, said: 'This is cowardice by a judge who is putting the killer's interests ahead of the victims' family; shameful.'
A spokesman for the Judicial Office said it did not comment on individual cases.
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