Latest news with #NicholasProsper
The Guardian
16-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
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.
Sky News
16-04-2025
- Sky News
Sentence of Luton triple killer Nicholas Prosper, who murdered his family, referred to Court of Appeal
The sentence of triple murderer Nicholas Prosper, 19, who killed his family and was planning a school shooting in Luton, has been referred to the Court of Appeal. The referral has been made under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme, the Attorney General's Office said. Prosper pleaded guilty to the murder of his mother, Juliana Falcon, 48, and his siblings, Kyle Prosper, 16, and 13-year-old Giselle Prosper at Luton Crown Court in February. Their bodies were found at their flat in the town in September last year. He was sentenced to 49 years in prison in March. During sentencing, when explaining why he opted against handing out a whole-life order, the judge said: "A minimum term does not in any way equate to the value of the life of a murder victim, still less three such victims." The 19-year-old planned to carry out a mass shooting at St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, where Prosper and his siblings had been pupils, he admitted to police. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
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The Independent
25-03-2025
- The Independent
Threat from teenage boys in ‘sadistic' online groups surges six-fold, National Crime Agency warns
The threat from teenage boys drawn into 'sadistic' online networks has surged with reports up six-fold in two years, the National Crime Agency has warned. Teenagers are being drawn into online gangs which compete to commit harrowing crimes including child abuse, fraud and sharing extreme violent and misogynistic material. The NCA, which investigates serious and organised crime threats to the country, has called for parents, police and educators to help in the fight against teenage threats after reports relating to the so-called "com networks" increased six-fold in the UK between 2022 and 2024. Analysts estimate that thousands of users – including offenders and victims – based in the UK and other western countries have exchanged millions of messages online relating to sexual and physical abuse. The online groups are causing young people to 'develop a dangerous propensity for extreme violence ', they warned. It comes after last week Nicholas Prosper was jailed for 49 years for murdering his family and plotting to become the deadliest school shooter in history after being drawn into an 'internet wormhole'. The NCA's annual National Strategic Assessment, published on Tuesday, described the groups as networks on social media or messaging platforms that "routinely share harmful content and extremist or misogynistic rhetoric". It said: "Extreme and illicit imagery depicting violence, gore and child sexual abuse material is frequently shared amongst users, normalising and desensitising participants to increasingly extreme content and behaviours. "'Com' networks use extreme coercion to manipulate their victims, who are often children, into harming or abusing themselves, their siblings or pets, and re-victimising them by doxing or appropriation by other offenders. "Members of 'Com' networks are usually young men who are motivated by status, power, control, misogyny, sexual gratification or an obsession with extreme or violent material. "The emergence of these types of online platforms are almost certainly causing some individuals, especially younger people, to develop a dangerous propensity for extreme violence." The NCA's director general Graeme Biggar said: "This is a hugely complex and deeply concerning phenomenon. "Young people are being drawn into these sadistic and violent online gangs where they are collaborating at scale to inflict, or incite others to commit, serious harm. "These groups are not lurking on the dark web, they exist in the same online world and platforms young people use on a daily basis. "It is especially concerning to see the impact this is having on young girls who are often groomed into hurting themselves and in some cases, even encouraged to attempt suicide." Members of the online networks often want to gain notoriety by inflicting the most harm on their victims or sharing the most disturbing content, while others are paedophiles who sell material to other sex offenders. Mr Biggar urged parents and carers to speak to children about what they are doing online and warned some victims may not realise a crime has been committed against them because they have been groomed. Assistant chief constable Alastair Simpson, national policing lead for child sexual exploitation and abuse, added: "The growth of Com networks that incite and encourage children and vulnerable adults towards acts of self-harm, suicide and violence is hugely concerning. "The role of undercover online officers is vital in this space, and my message to anyone who is exploiting children online: remember that there is no space where criminals operate that we cannot go and investigations into these networks have already begun. "Policing will always play its part, but social media providers have a clear role to play in monitoring and regulating their platforms to root out this abhorrent criminal behaviour and make all online spaces safe for children and adults.' Elsewhere, the assessment found that the UK is falling prey to international criminals from China, Russia and Iran. "Chinese national offenders are linked to cyber, drugs, fraud, illicit finance, modern slavery and human trafficking and organised immigration crime offending that impacts on the UK," the report found. It added: "It is likely that the already high threat from Chinese-speaking money laundering networks in the UK continues to grow. "As well as moving cash for UK criminals, they help UK-based Chinese nationals to evade Chinese currency controls, which enables them to invest in the UK." Iran and Russia also allow certain crimes carried out from within their jurisdictions against the UK, including ransomware groups, which are out of the reach of Western law enforcement. Some countries use offences including cybercrime, drug trafficking and money laundering to support their own objectives or evade sanctions, the assessment said, including North Korea. Ketamine use has risen sharply in the UK, the report warned. Wastewater analysis by the Home Office showed ketamine consumption soared by 85 per cent in January to April 2023 compared with the previous year. Cocaine use also rose 7 per cent, but heroin use dropped 11 per cent. The number of adults who needed medical treatment after taking ketamine rose by five times from 426 in 2014/15 to 2,211 in 2022/23. It is cheaper than cocaine but can cause severe health problems including damage referred to as "ketamine bladder", as well as causing a dissociative state when taken, which could leave the user at risk of physical harm, the NCA said.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Yahoo
Why Nicholas Prosper did not get whole life order
The sentence given to a teenager who murdered his mother and siblings has been referred to the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme by the shadow justice minister. Nicholas Prosper admitted to using a shotgun to kill Juliana Falcon, 48, Kyle Prosper, 16, and Giselle Prosper, 13, at their home in Luton in September. The 19-year-old had planned to kill about 30 students and staff at his former primary school, but the noise his family made during the struggle alerted neighbours who called the police and interrupted his plans. A spokesperson from the Attorney General's Office confirmed it has received the request by the Conservative MP Kieran Mullan. The office has 28 days from the point of sentencing to make a decision. Unlike a life sentence, which has a minimum time to serve in a prison, a whole life order (WLO) means the person will never be released. Home secretaries have been able to impose whole life orders since 1983 and judges have held such powers since the passing of the Criminal Justice Act in 2003. It is the harshest penalty available to courts since capital punishment was abolished. The sentence can be considered in exceptional cases such as those where two or more people have been killed with a significant degree of pre-meditation, or where one child is killed with similar pre-planning. Triple murderer and rapist Kyle Clifford was given three WLOs earlier this month, after he killed his ex-girlfriend, her sister and her mother in a crossbow and knife attack in Bushey, Hertfordshire. Nurse Lucy Letby received a total of 15 WLOs after murdering and attempting to murder babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital. Previously, an individual under the age of 21 could not be given a WLO. In 2022 this was changed to include offenders aged between 18-20, but only in cases where the seriousness was "exceptionally high" even when compared to similar offences committed by those 21 and over. This was introduced after the judge could not give Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, an WLO because of his age. If Prosper had been given a WLO he would have been the youngest offender to receive one. When passing sentence, High Court judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb explained that while a WLO would be a starting point for similar crimes for defendants over the age of 21, those that are younger require the seriousness of their offences to be "exceptionally high". While Prosper is "indisputably a very dangerous young man", the risk to the public is met with a life sentence, she concluded. Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told him: "Despite the gravity of your crimes, it is the explicit joint submission of counsel that a lengthy finite term will be a sufficiently severe penalty." During sentencing David Bentley KC argued mitigating factors on Prosper's behalf and described his client as a "young man at the start of his adult life". He pointed to the defendant's lack of previous convictions and that he had been living with an undiagnosed neurological development disorder in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Mr Bentley told the court how Prosper's parents had separated when he was nine years old and Prosper had "retreated into a harmful, internet world" that was "isolated from the real world". The killer must also receive credit for pleading guilty "at the earliest possible opportunity", said his defence. The judge said she would not impose a whole life order because Prosper was stopped from carrying out the school shooting: "otherwise this case would have had a very different and even more appalling outcome." She explained: "I have decided to impose a minimum term. In drawing back from a whole life order I have already taken into account your age, your guilty pleas and the fact that you did not carry out any violence after you left your flat despite having reloaded the shotgun. "Having reflected, I agree with the parties and do not impose a whole life order in this case. Firstly, because you were thwarted from completing your intentions, otherwise this case would have had a very different and even more appalling outcome. Secondly, this prosecution has resulted in guilty pleas. Thirdly, you were 18 at the relevant time." She explained all three murders reach the threshold for a 30-year minimum term individually and "the increase I impose is the least possible in all the circumstances". After passing sentence she told Prosper: "You remain highly dangerous and it may be that you will never be released." On Wednesday the Conservative shadow justice minister, Kieran Mullan, posted on X that Prosper's sentence of life with a minimum of 49 years was not enough for the nature of his crimes. He referred the case to the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme and said: "If we don't give criminals like this whole life orders what are they for?" The scheme allows anyone to ask for certain crown court sentences to be reviewed by the attorney general. A spokesperson from the Attorney General's Office confirmed it has received the request to consider Prosper's sentence and have 28 days from the point of sentencing to make a decision. Mullan thought it was "particularly galling" that Prosper's failure to see through his shooting plans were considered mitigating circumstances. In his letter to Attorney General Lord Hermer, he wrote: "This was the gravest of crimes that would be difficult to surpass in its seriousness and has rightly generated public outrage. "I struggle to imagine a case of such seriousness not being that for which the WLO sentence is there to be used." He described a "yawning gap" between public expectation of justice and sentences issued for serious crimes. Mullan said: "What exactly does someone have to do in this country to be sent away for life? This was the most serious of crimes - including the murder of two children. "What is the point of making provision for WLOs if they aren't used in cases like this? It makes a mockery of the justice system and is an insult to the victims." Bedfordshire's police and crime commissioner supported the sentencing decision. Speaking to BBC Three Counties Radio, Labour's John Tizard explained: "If you listen, as I did, to [the judge's] summary and her presentation in sentencing it was a very considered view that took into account the law as well as circumstances." Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. Prosper murders 'expose lack of control' over guns The 'sliding doors' moment that stopped Sandy Hook-obsessed killer's school massacre Watch: Footage shows teen planning triple murder Teenage killer planned 'massacre of the century' The disturbing internet history of a triple killer HM Courts and Tribunals Service
BBC News
20-03-2025
- BBC News
Why Nicholas Prosper not receive a whole life order
The sentence given to a teenager who murdered his mother and siblings has been referred to the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme by the shadow justice minister. Nicholas Prosper admitted to using a shotgun to kill Juliana Falcon, 48, Kyle Prosper, 16, and Giselle Prosper, 13, at their home in Luton in 19-year-old had planned to kill about 30 students and staff at his former primary school, but the noise his family made during the struggle alerted neighbours who called the police and interrupted his plans.A spokesperson from the Attorney General's Office confirmed it has received the request by the Conservative MP Kieran Mullan. The office has 28 days from the point of sentencing to make a decision. What is a whole life order? Unlike a life sentence, which has a minimum time to serve in a prison, a whole life order (WLO) means the person will never be secretaries have been able to impose whole life orders since 1983 and judges have held such powers since the passing of the Criminal Justice Act in is the harshest penalty available to courts since capital punishment was sentence can be considered in exceptional cases such as those where two or more people have been killed with a significant degree of pre-meditation, or where one child is killed with similar murderer and rapist Kyle Clifford was given three WLOs earlier this month, after he killed his ex-girlfriend, her sister and her mother in a crossbow and knife attack in Bushey, Lucy Letby received a total of 15 WLOs after murdering and attempting to murder babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital. Previously, an individual under the age of 21 could not be given a 2022 this was changed to include offenders aged between 18-20, but only in cases where the seriousness was "exceptionally high" even when compared to similar offences committed by those 21 and was introduced after the judge could not give Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, an WLO because of his Prosper had been given a WLO he would have been the youngest offender to receive one. What did the judge say? When passing sentence, High Court judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb explained that while a WLO would be a starting point for similar crimes for defendants over the age of 21, those that are younger require the seriousness of their offences to be "exceptionally high".While Prosper is "indisputably a very dangerous young man", the risk to the public is met with a life sentence, she Justice Cheema-Grubb told him: "Despite the gravity of your crimes, it is the explicit joint submission of counsel that a lengthy finite term will be a sufficiently severe penalty." During sentencing David Bentley KC argued mitigating factors on Prosper's behalf and described his client as a "young man at the start of his adult life".He pointed to the defendant's lack of previous convictions and that he had been living with an undiagnosed neurological development disorder in autism spectrum disorder (ASD).Mr Bentley told the court how Prosper's parents had separated when he was nine years old and Prosper had "retreated into a harmful, internet world" that was "isolated from the real world".The killer must also receive credit for pleading guilty "at the earliest possible opportunity", said his defence. The judge said she would not impose a whole life order because Prosper was stopped from carrying out the school shooting: "otherwise this case would have had a very different and even more appalling outcome." She explained: "I have decided to impose a minimum term. In drawing back from a whole life order I have already taken into account your age, your guilty pleas and the fact that you did not carry out any violence after you left your flat despite having reloaded the shotgun."Having reflected, I agree with the parties and do not impose a whole life order in this case. Firstly, because you were thwarted from completing your intentions, otherwise this case would have had a very different and even more appalling outcome. Secondly, this prosecution has resulted in guilty pleas. Thirdly, you were 18 at the relevant time."She explained all three murders reach the threshold for a 30-year minimum term individually and "the increase I impose is the least possible in all the circumstances".After passing sentence she told Prosper: "You remain highly dangerous and it may be that you will never be released." Who has criticised the sentence? On Wednesday the Conservative shadow justice minister, Kieran Mullan, posted on X that Prosper's sentence of life with a minimum of 49 years was not enough for the nature of his referred the case to the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme and said: "If we don't give criminals like this whole life orders what are they for?"The scheme allows anyone to ask for certain crown court sentences to be reviewed by the attorney general.A spokesperson from the Attorney General's Office confirmed it has received the request to consider Prosper's sentence and have 28 days from the point of sentencing to make a thought it was "particularly galling" that Prosper's failure to see through his shooting plans were considered mitigating circumstances. In his letter to Attorney General Lord Hermer, he wrote: "This was the gravest of crimes that would be difficult to surpass in its seriousness and has rightly generated public outrage."I struggle to imagine a case of such seriousness not being that for which the WLO sentence is there to be used."He described a "yawning gap" between public expectation of justice and sentences issued for serious crimes. Mullan said: "What exactly does someone have to do in this country to be sent away for life? This was the most serious of crimes - including the murder of two children."What is the point of making provision for WLOs if they aren't used in cases like this? It makes a mockery of the justice system and is an insult to the victims."Bedfordshire's police and crime commissioner supported the sentencing to BBC Three Counties Radio, Labour's John Tizard explained: "If you listen, as I did, to [the judge's] summary and her presentation in sentencing it was a very considered view that took into account the law as well as circumstances." Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
