Court of Appeal, Criminal Division
Published July 6, 2009
Regina v Morley (Anthony)
Before Lord Judge, Lord Chief Justice, Mr Justice Collins and Mr Justice Owen
Judgment June 10, 2009

However comprehensive legislation relating to sentences might seek to be, it could not cover all the many different facets of human criminal behaviour which sentencing judges had to take into account.

The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, so stated in dismissing an appeal by Anthony Morley against a life sentence, with a specified 30-year minimum term before he could apply for parole, imposed by Judge Stewart, QC, at Leeds Crown Court on October 20, 2008, following his conviction for murder.

Mr Paul Greaney, assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals, for the appellant; Mr Richard Mansell, QC, for the prosecution.

THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, giving the judgment of the court, said that the appellant, a chef, had killed the deceased and had then removed sections of flesh from the body, cooking part of it with herbs and olive oil and sampling it before spitting it out.

The judge concluded that the appellant’s gruesome conduct after the death would be taken into account in the context of his conclusion that this was a particularly serious murder which merited a starting point of 30 years before parole could be considered.

The appellant’s submission was that under Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the starting point should have been fixed at 15 years, with an appropriate increase to allow for the gruesome circumstances which followed the killing.

In their Lordships’ judgment, although the cannibalistic desecration of a body after death was not a feature expressly identified in Schedule 21, it was a feature which normally would fall to be identified as a profoundly significant feature of seriousness which would justify bringing the case into the particularly high level of seriousness, assuming that all other aspects of the case were equal.

The list of features identified in paragraphs 4 and 5 of Schedule 21, as well as the list of aggravating and mitigating features in paragraphs 10 and 11, were not conclusive, nor exclusive.

The question was whether, in all the circumstances, this was a case of particularly high seriousness. It was such a case; 30 years was the right starting point.

Solicitors: Crown Prosecution Service, Leeds.

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