GUILTY UK - Diane Stewart, 47, found dead, Bassingbourn, Cambridgeshire, 25 June 2010 *arrest in 2020*

[Cherwell]

"It is common ground between the parties that it is not possible for a life sentence to be ordered to run consecutively to
another life sentence. Nor is it possible to order that a minimum term order should run consecutively to a minimum term order made at an earlier sentencing hearing."

But why shouldn't it be possible?

And (speaking generally here) I never understand why sentences for multiple offences are invariably concurrent. Seems like they get a free pass for all but one of their crimes.

 

[MsMiniSleuth]

• Double murderer Ian Stewart, 61, killed his first wife six years before he went on to murder his fiancée
• He has now successfully appealed against his whole-life order, which was today reduced to 35 years
• Stewart killed children's book author Helen Bailey, 51, in 2016, and dumped her body in cesspit at home
• He was found guilty of her murder in 2017, and police then probed 2010 death of first wife Diane Stewart
• In February, Stewart convicted of her murder too and given whole-life order, which has now been reduced

Double murderer Ian Stewart - who killed his first wife six years before he went on to murder his fiancée - has successfully appealed against his whole-life order, which was today reduced to 35 years in a shock ruling.

Stewart, 61 - who was sentenced to the whole-life term on February 9 - killed children's book author Helen Bailey, 51, in 2016, and dumped her body in the cesspit of the £1.5million home they shared in Royston, Hertfordshire.

A trial at St Albans Crown Court previously heard it was most likely that Mrs Bailey - who wrote the Electra Brown series of books - was suffocated while sedated by drugs. Stewart was found guilty of her murder in February 2017.

After this conviction, police investigated the June 2010 death of Stewart's first wife, 47-year-old Diane Stewart, of Bassingbourn, Cambridgeshire. The cause of her death was recorded at the time as Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) - but, in February, Stewart was found guilty of her murder at Huntingdon Crown Court.

Then in May, in an application to the Court of Appeal, Stewart's representative Amjad Malik QC argued that the whole-life order he was given for the murder of his first wife was not justified in the circumstances of the case.

And in a ruling this morning, Lord Burnett and the four other judges said Stewart was 'not one of the rare cases' where a whole life order should be imposed, reducing his sentence to life with a 35-year minimum term.

Double murderer Ian Stewart has whole-life sentence cut to 35 years

Ian Stewart - who was sentenced to the whole-life term on February 9 - killed Helen Bailey, 51, in 2016, and dumped her body in a cesspit at their home in Royston, Hertfordshire.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Alyce]

"It is common ground between the parties that it is not possible for a life sentence to be ordered to run consecutively to
another life sentence. Nor is it possible to order that a minimum term order should run consecutively to a minimum term order made at an earlier sentencing hearing."

But why shouldn't it be possible?

And (speaking generally here) I never understand why sentences for multiple offences are invariably concurrent. Seems like they get a free pass for all but one of their crimes.

Completely agree. Time they made a few changes to these laws imo

 

[Kasmeer]

Seems such a simple solution, doesn't it - if crimes aren't tried together, and that is the reasoning behind giving a lower sentence, then the sentences shouldn't be served together either. In other words, you got sentenced to 34 years, and later 35? Enjoy your 69 years in prison. Job done.

(And, in my opinion, crimes tried together still should receive separate, consecutive, sentences per charge, when more than one equal charge is brought - kill two people, get two murder sentences, not one that's 10% longer... I get the point of ignoring a 2-year PCOJ sentence when the main crime got 30+ years, but equal crimes deserve equal time, and victims are not worth less just because there are multiple of them)

 

[mrjitty]

Can't believe I missed this trial!

Just read the thread. Seems he got away with this because no one suspected foul play.

What seemed odd is there was no evidence of a fit - this just became the narrative?


Strange and unfortunate case.

 

[mrjitty]

Seems such a simple solution, doesn't it - if crimes aren't tried together, and that is the reasoning behind giving a lower sentence, then the sentences shouldn't be served together either. In other words, you got sentenced to 34 years, and later 35? Enjoy your 69 years in prison. Job done.

(And, in my opinion, crimes tried together still should receive separate, consecutive, sentences per charge, when more than one equal charge is brought - kill two people, get two murder sentences, not one that's 10% longer... I get the point of ignoring a 2-year PCOJ sentence when the main crime got 30+ years, but equal crimes deserve equal time, and victims are not worth less just because there are multiple of them)

This would just lead to more pointless sentence inflation and jails overflowing even more than now.

Personally I think the reversal of the whole life sentence is correct - but is more of dry legal interest than any practical import.

For instance if someone does 2 murders in a single transaction (e.g a gangland shooting) they don't get 69 years non parole period. I agree this is a weird circumstance but the UK approach to concurrent sentences doesn't mean you get a free murder - that is a curious way to look at it IMO.

 

[mrjitty]

Reading between the lines (because of the lack of thorough reporting) I think there's probably a problem with his timeline, and filling up the 54 minutes between 10:30am (when he told police he had last seen Diane) and 11:24am when he called 999.

He went to Tesco to buy a few things and forgot his wallet (according to IS - but no proof of this trip).

Tesco in Royston is a 6 minute drive from the house.

Say 15 minutes to pick up the two items, head to the checkout and discover he had left his wallet at home. A trip totalling 27 minutes.

That leaves 27 minutes to account for before calling 999.

So he invented the CPR and standing outside the doctor's house for 5 minutes before making the phone call.

But the trouble is he told the call handler that he could go and fetch his neighbour so I don't think the jury is going to believe his time-filler. Especially since he also said on the 999 call -

999: Can you check her for me?

IS: Yeah.

999: Is she breathing?

IS: I don't think so, I've turned her to try to put her in the recovery position but I can't do it because she just flopped back. I think she's had a fit.


He doesn't say he's already attempted CPR for about 20 minutes. Plus he says he "just found her" . Plus he was counting too fast even for the two chest compressions every second - which makes it sound as if he was just counting very fast and not actually doing any compressions. Two compressions per second would be very fast, let alone going faster than that.

999: I'll tell you when to stop, sir, it's 600 times.

(IS continues counting from one to four).

999: Slow down sir, it's one, two, three, four.

[...]

999: You keep going, I'll tell you when it's 600 times, OK?

(IS continues counting from one to four).

999: Keep going, sir.

(IS continues counting from one to four, counting quicker as time goes by)

999: It's one, two, three, four.

IS: Sorry.

I think you are right T

We know from the Helen B case that this guy is a complete clown with the most unbelievable stories. His scheme was absurd - he just had a good hiding place.

I was wondering how such a muppet could get away with a murder in the first place, but it seems it is because there was just no reason to suspect there had been a murder. No one ever really investigated this crime at all. So it's just a rare one where an idiot caught a break on a big crime.

We saw this a bit with Daybell/Vallow, where they literally got away with 2 murders - it wasn't until their third (!!!) that suspicions were raised ....

 

[Kasmeer]

This would just lead to more pointless sentence inflation and jails overflowing even more than now.

Personally I think the reversal of the whole life sentence is correct - but is more of dry legal interest than any practical import.

For instance if someone does 2 murders in a single transaction (e.g a gangland shooting) they don't get 69 years non parole period. I agree this is a weird circumstance but the UK approach to concurrent sentences doesn't mean you get a free murder - that is a curious way to look at it IMO.

I get your point about overflowing jails (although, perhaps, building a few more for serious criminals instead of letting them loose when still dangerous might be a good policy), but I'm not sure what is so "curious" about my post? There may be an argument for not doubling a sentence for two killings in a single incident, but that's not even relevant to this case.

Perhaps to look at it another way (and try to remove the legal loopholes which led to some of this): if he'd killed both when much younger, served his 34 years for Helen Bailey's murder, and only now been found guilty of Diane Stewart's murder, would you consider six years an appropriate sentence for murder? I don't, and I don't see why it's "curious" to object to what seems a like a failure of basic justice.

 

[mrjitty]

I get your point about overflowing jails (although, perhaps, building a few more for serious criminals instead of letting them loose when still dangerous might be a good policy), but I'm not sure what is so "curious" about my post? There may be an argument for not doubling a sentence for two killings in a single incident, but that's not even relevant to this case.

Perhaps to look at it another way (and try to remove the legal loopholes which led to some of this): if he'd killed both when much younger, served his 34 years for Helen Bailey's murder, and only now been found guilty of Diane Stewart's murder, would you consider six years an appropriate sentence for murder? I don't, and I don't see why it's "curious" to object to what seems a like a failure of basic justice.

There is loads that could be written about sentencing so i'll keep my response brief-ish

By "curious" I meant more the theme in responses that concurrent sentences mean you get free crimes, but the UK approach isn't designed to work by totting up all the offences into one jumbo sentence (seen to an absurd degree in the US).

e.g let's say i do an aggravated robbery that typically attracts 10 years but in that context i go on a spree with lots of other related crimes (e.g. theft of a getaway car). The judge doesn't tot it all up and ok that's 25 years mate. Rather the judge balances various goals like deterrence, punishment etc etc and would likely place me at the high end for the main offence, because it's already enough punishment for the type of offending.

So i can see how it feels like I am getting the other crimes "for free" but prison sentences aren't designed to work that way.

As for the accused he already has an operative life sentence so no need to get a second one. Where the accused is released on parole but committed a further offence, he'd obviously go straight back to jail, under his first sentence even before considering his next one.

The public like high mandatory sentences in these cases, but parliament has created parole discretions for important reasons - so Judges should tend to leave the discretion in, rather than tie the hands of decision makers in 35 years time.

Having said all the above, this is a bit of an edge case, but in practical terms i don't feel like there is any significant issue or problem here that needs reforming?

tldr; the UK system has always reserved discretion to the Home Secretary in these matters, and there are good reasons why that is the case.

 

[MsMiniSleuth]

FOUR murder fiends given whole-life jail terms were handed more than £600,000 in legal aid.

The monsters, including killer cop Wayne Couzens, clocked up the huge total as they sought softer punishments.

Figures obtained by The Sun on Sunday show cesspit killer Ian Stewart, 61 ran up the highest taxpayer-funded bill of £271,014.

He was jailed in 2017 for murdering his girlfriend, kids’ author Helen Bailey, 51, whose body he dumped in the cesspit at their Hertfordshire home.

He was then convicted of murdering his first wife.

His jail term was reduced on appeal to a 35-year minimum.

[...]

Met cop Couzens, who raped and strangled Sarah Everard, got £33,694 — set to rise as he failed to have his whole-life tariff reduced.

The agency said the aid “ensured justice was served”.

Four murder fiends given life jail terms rack up £600,000 in legal aid

FOUR murder fiends given whole-life jail terms were handed more than £600,000 in legal aid. The monsters, including killer cop Wayne Couzens, clocked up the huge total as they sought softer punishm…

www.thesun.co.uk

 

[Rusty Braincells]

It is a joke and embarrassment to the nation that Stewart has the possibility of parole. It’s also an extremely hurtful insult to the families. And the legal fees are idiotic. I am a lawyer and I know everyone must be represented for the system to work but frankly shame on my colleague who has got this guy the possibility of release on a technicality. I’d rather sweep the streets for a living. Disgrace.

I’m quite sick of the UK system, for this sort of premeditated crime (x2!!) there should be NO PAROLE. Why should Stewart enjoy restaurants and fresh air at the end of his life? Why should Helen’s and Diane’s families have to see photos of him out and about doing what he likes? The system has to change — now.