Appeal Court to Review Sentence of Triple Killer as Push for Whole-Life Term Intensifies

DOWNLOAD IPFS

A legal bid to increase the sentence of convicted triple murderer Nicholas Prosper to a whole-life order is set to be heard at the Court of Appeal this week, following concerns that his current punishment may fall short of the seriousness of his crimes.

Prosper, now 19, was handed a minimum prison term of 49 years in March after admitting to killing his mother and two siblings at their home in Luton, Bedfordshire. However, the Solicitor General has since referred the case to the Court of Appeal, arguing that the sentence was unduly lenient given the horrific nature of the offences.

The hearing is scheduled for Wednesday morning at the Royal Courts of Justice in London and will be overseen by Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, Mr Justice Goss, and Mr Justice Wall. The appeal is the latest step in an ongoing call for stricter penalties in exceptional brutality cases.

Prosper admitted to murdering his 48-year-old mother, Juliana Falcon, 13-year-old sister Giselle, and 16-year-old brother Kyle on September 13, 2023. He also confessed to plotting a mass shooting at his former primary school and pleaded guilty to several weapons charges. Prosecutors described how Prosper stabbed his brother more than 100 times and later led officers to a hidden shotgun and 33 cartridges in a field nearby.

The shotgun and 100 rounds of ammunition had been bought legally the day before the killings, after Prosper forged a firearms licence to make the purchase. After carrying out the murders, he hid for over two hours before flagging down a police car and directing officers to the weapon’s location.

Sentence Questioned

When sentencing Prosper earlier this year, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb ruled that while he was “indisputably a very dangerous young man,” the legal threshold for imposing a whole-life order had not been met. She explained that although the crimes were exceptionally serious, Prosper had not managed to follow through with the planned school massacre, having been interrupted by his mother.

The judge acknowledged that the killings were of the utmost gravity, but said the law required extraordinary circumstances to justify a whole-life order for someone aged 18 at the time of the offence. She accepted the joint recommendation from both defence and prosecution that a lengthy, fixed minimum term would be a sufficiently severe punishment.

Nevertheless, the Attorney General’s Office submitted a referral in April, stating that the sentence should have been tougher. A spokesperson said: “We believe the court should reconsider whether Prosper’s crimes merit the most severe sentence available.”

Whole-life orders are only given in the most extreme cases and mean that the offender will never be released. Past examples include Louis De Zoysa, who murdered Metropolitan Police Service Sergeant Matt Ratana, and Kyle Clifford, who killed his ex-partner and her family in 2023.

Sentence laws were amended in 2022 to allow courts to hand out whole-life terms to offenders aged 18 to 20 in exceptional cases, although none have been issued under this rule.

Prosper was also sentenced to concurrent life terms for possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, with a minimum term of 18 years, three and a half years for purchasing the gun, and a one-year sentence for carrying a kitchen knife.

Legal experts and the wider public will closely watch this appeal as it may set a precedent for how future cases involving young but extremely violent offenders are dealt with. Critics of the justice system have pointed to Prosper’s sentence as evidence that courts are still hesitant to use the full force of the law, even when confronted with the most chilling crimes.