David Clark v. Her Majesty's Advocate [2014] HCJAC 108

Note of appeal against sentence:- On 28 February 2014, at Edinburgh High Court, the appellant pled guilty to a charge of culpable homicide following a incident in which the appellant stabbed his nephew on the leg with a knife as a result of which the nephew died. On 28 March 2014 the appellant was sentenced to 7 years and 7 months imprisonment discounted from 12 years to reflect the plea and the 5 months which the appellant had spent on remand. Here the appellant appealed against the sentence imposed. It was submitted on his behalf that the sentence imposed was excessive having regard to the unusual circumstances of the case. It was submitted on his behalf that:- (1) those present, including the appellant, did not appreciate that the leg injury caused by the appellant might be life-threatening and after a dressing had been applied to the wound everyone present thought the deceased would recover; (2) the appellant did not come armed with a knife and had picked it up in the middle of a struggle and struck his nephew once on the leg with it and it was not a pre-meditated attack; (3) the appellant had not offended for around 17 years prior to the incident; and (4) the appellant had expressed genuine remorse as was noted in the Criminal Justice Social Work Report and was struggling to come to terms with the fact that he killed his nephew. Here the court considered that the starting off point selected by the sentencing judge had been too high and a starting off point of 10 years was appropriate having regard to the particular circumstances of the offence and, applying the same level of discount of one-third as the sentencing judge had, the new sentence imposed was 6 years and 3 months.