U.K.: Disgraceful sentence reviewed

Two babysitters who carried out sexual offences of the “gravest depravity” on a baby girl should have been sentenced to 27 to 30 years, the Attorney-General said yesterday. Lord Goldsmith, QC, the Government’s senior law officer, told a panel of five Court of Appeal judges that the “evil” and “exceptional” crimes committed by Alan Webster and Tanya French had shocked and outraged public opinion. Lord Goldsmith is asking the rarely used panel, headed by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, to rule that the sentences being served by the pair are unduly lenient. “When offences of this depravity are committed, there is a need to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system. Public outrage here is a manifestation of society’s horror and the sentences need to reflect society’s horror,” he said.

Webster and French, of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, plotted the rape of the 12-week-old girl that they then carried out on several occasions, taking photographs of the abuse. French, he added, could not “hide behind” Webster. She helped in the planning and assisted with the assaults. “The two had a ‘wish list’ of depraved actions they set out to commit,” Lord Goldsmith said. The judges, he said, had seen the photographs of what took place — which was “almost beyond comprehension” and caused the mother “years and years of agony and pain”.

Webster, 40, was jailed for life in January after pleading guilty to rape, indecent assault, permitting indecent images to be taken of a child and making indecent images. But a judge at St Albans Crown Court set a minimum term of six years to be served by Webster before he could be considered for parole — a sentence, Lord Goldsmith said, that had outraged public opinion, although he said that the judge had done his best in a difficult sentencing exercise. French, 19, was jailed for five years and given an extended licence period of five years after admitting the same charges.

The Attorney-General is asking the appeal judges to set aside the recommended one-third reduction in sentence for a guilty plea, arguing that because of the photographic evidence, Webster had no option. Secondly he argued that the principle under which courts give offenders a discount for the trauma of being brought before a sentencing court for a second time should not apply in life sentence cases. A starting point, before any discount for guilty pleas, would be “in double figures” and in the region of 27 to 30 years. The baby’s mother has described the sentences given to the pair as a “joke”.

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