The cowardly copycats avoiding sentencing must be stopped

Telegraph

12-03-2025

There was a moment while I binge-watched the ITV drama, A Cruel Love, about Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, when I put down my coffee and sat bolt upright, silenced. I watched as a black cap was placed on the head of the judge and he passed sentence, telling Ellis of her death by hanging for the murder of her lover. It was the moment of reckoning.
I would not for one moment urge the return of capital punishment. The story of Ellis, hanged in 1955, is a reminder that the legal system was right to later introduce the defence of diminished responsibility while other cases showed how dreadful mistakes can be made about guilt. But the passing of a sentence, even without capital punishment, matters. It is the outcome of judgment and tells the victim's family, and indeed, all of us, that justice has been done. The convicted criminal faces avenging terrible deeds.
Except now we have a growing trend for those convicted to avoid such reckoning. On Tuesday, Kyle Clifford, found guilty of the murder of Carol Hunt, wife of the BBC's racing commentator, John Hunt, and of their daughters, Hannah and Louise, refused to come to court to listen to the judge pass sentence.
Clifford is the latest in a line of killers who have declined to attend court for their sentencing. Think of Thomas Cashman who shot dead nine year old Olivia Pratt-Korbel, or Jordan McSweeney, who sexually assaulted and murdered 35-year-old law graduate Zara Aleena.
Sometimes killers who profess their innocence do this, such as Lucy Letby, but others where there is indisputable proof, like Kyle Clifford, just refuse to listen. Surely the time has come to put a stop to the cowardly copycats who want to follow in the footsteps of their fellow murderers and evade this moment when they hear their fate.
One reason for this growing refusal of convicted murderers to attend sentencing may well be the introduction of Victims' Personal Statements being given in court, introduced by the Victims' Charter in 1996. Lawyers for the prosecution and the defence continue to outline the case in major criminal trials, and interrogate witnesses, but nothing brings home the consequence of someone's evil actions more powerfully than hearing from those most directly affected.
As John Hunt and his daughter Amy read their statements, those in court, including police officers, wept as they listened. Clifford, however, avoided hearing something so harrowing.
The previous government attempted to put an end to these refusals by pledging to introduce a criminal justice bill which would allow 'reasonable force' to be used to make criminals appear in the dock. But that bill, due to the calling of the general election, fell.
Families, including Cheryl, the mother of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, have campaigned for killers to be compelled to attend sentencing. But it can be difficult. In Kyle Clifford's case, the judge said he did not insist he came to court because he did not want him potentially disrupting proceedings. But the Starmer government must surely legislate some means of doing this, such as keeping a convicted killer refusing to attend court in their prison cell, while sentencing is broadcast to it.
On Tuesday, John Hunt said in his impact statement how much he regretted not being able to speak directly to Kyle Clifford: ' I so wanted to deliver these words, eye to eye, with Kyle '.
We no longer have eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, Old Testament-style punishment in this country. There is no judge with a black cap on his head telling the killer in the dock 'May God have mercy on your soul', as they pronounce death by hanging. But we must surely have eye to eye sentencing – for the sake of families like the Hunts, and for all of us, wanting justice to be done.
Judges have raised concerns – and rightly – that bringing a screaming criminal with force to the dock would be highly disruptive. But there should surely be ways and means, such as broadcasting sentencing to their prison cell if they refuse to attend court. The Sunak government planned to introduce legislation about this but it fell because of the election. It must be revived.