Murderers face end to mandatory life sentences

MURDERERS will no longer face automatic life sentences under proposals published in Britain yesterday - changing a law which dates back to the abolition of the death penalty 40 years ago.

The Government's legal advisers suggested creating a new framework of "first degree" and "second degree" murder alongside a revised definition of manslaughter.

There should also be new categories of homicide for specific offences, such as assisting suicide and infanticide, the Law Commission said in provisional proposals.

Crucially, killers who intend to cause their victims "serious harm" but not to kill them will be treated as second degree murderers and will no longer face mandatory life sentences.

Ministers have previously suggested that the end of mandatory sentences would undermine public confidence in the criminal justice system.

The Law Commission chairman, Roger Toulson, agreed that the proposals could lead to fewer killers receiving automatic life sentences.

But he insisted it was a "misconception" that Parliament had been assured when capital punishment was abolished in 1965 that all murderers would get life.

"I don't think that promise was made," he said.

Toulson's stance also contrasted with former Home Secretary David Blunkett, who said last year: "The death penalty for murder was abolished in faith that the criminal justice system would continue to treat the offence with the utmost gravity."

The proposals were harshly criticised by victims' groups because they open the door to an end to mandatory life sentences for murderers.

The Law Commission's report is the first stage in the most radical review of murder laws in England and Wales for 50 years.

Toulson disagreed that the end of automatic life sentences in, for example, a fight which led to someone's death would send out the wrong message.

He said: "If somebody throws a punch intending to cause, say, a broken nose and unfortunately there are medical complications and they die, is that different in a big way to somebody who intends to kill?

"Parliament recognises that it is ... but the jury doesn't get a say in it at the moment."

Shadow Attorney General Dominic Grieve said the proposal was "extraordinary."

"If first degree murder is to be confined solely to those who intend to kill their victims and excludes those who intend to cause their victims 'serious harm' through the use of deliberate violence, then a message will go out about the acceptability of violence that is massively counter-productive to creating a peaceful society," he said.

Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, attacked the proposals as a "watering down" of the most heinous of all crimes.

"These proposals will result in shorter sentences and it will be seen by a number of criminals as a licence to murder, as a long term of imprisonment seems less likely," he said.