Iain Packer v. His Majesty’s Advocate [2024] HCJAC 38

Note of appeal against sentence:- On 28 February 2024, following a trial at Glasgow High Court, the appellant was convicted of 33 charges, including the murder of Emma Caldwell in April 2005, an attempt to defeat the ends of justice in connection with that murder, and of the sexual abuse, abduction and assault of various complainers over a 26 year period between 1990 and 2016 including 11 charges of rape perpetrated against 9 women. The trial judge sentenced the appellant to life imprisonment with a punishment part of 36 years of which two years was attributed to the charge of attempting to defeat the ends of justice and twelve years to the other offences. On these latter charges the judge imposed concurrent sentences of 6 years and 28 years imprisonment respectively. On behalf of the appellant it was submitted that it would not be in the interests of justice not to allow an application for parole for such a significant period of time and notwithstanding that this series of crimes was “as bad as it gets” it was not appropriate in a civilised society that someone should not be eligible for parole until his mid 80s and the appeal against the length of the punishment part imposed should be allowed. Here the court refused the appeal. The court reiterated what was said by the court in Chalmers v. H.M.A. 2014 J.C. 229 about the way the court should approach cases where there are convictions on the same indictment and recently summarised in Owens v. H.M.A. 2022 S.L.T. 1181 at paragraph 16:- “... The sentencing judge should decide whether the conviction on the lesser charge should be reflected in the punishment part. He or she should then make an overall judgment having regard to the punishment part that would have been appropriate if the murder conviction stood alone, the element of retribution and deterrence attributable to the conviction on the lesser charge and the loss of the opportunity for early release that an independent sentence on that charge would have given. The sentence on the lesser charge must be imposed to run concurrently with the sentence on the murder charge and would become relevant if the conviction on the murder charge was quashed.” The court noted that it was accepted on behalf of the appellant that the trial judge approached the sentencing exercise correctly, rather, it had been contended that the cumulo sentence of 28 years was excessive for the other offences and applying 12 years of that period to the punishment part was excessive. The court disagreed with that noting that these other offences comprising of a catalogue of appalling offences were committed over a 26 year period and affected a number of vulnerable women. The court considered that the total punishment part sentence selected was within the reasonable range for the offending of which the appellant was convicted and the sentence imposed was fair and proportionate having regard to the nature and length of the offending.