Seven prisoners serving indeterminate sentences including three teenagers when sentenced – one as young as 17 years old – have had their cases referred to the Court of Appeal amid concerns that judges failed to give sufficient weight to their age and immaturity.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has referred the sentences of seven people convicted between 2005 and 2012. All remain in custody despite having served well beyond their minimum terms, known as tariffs. The tariffs ranged from one year and 243 days to seven and a half years. The referrals bring to 32 the number of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) and detention for public protection (DPP) cases referred by the commission this year. More than 250 other cases are currently under review.
Three of the applicants received IPP sentences. Michael Seddon was sentenced for robbery in 2011, with a minimum tariff of seven and a half years. Joshua Gordon received a four-year tariff for aggravated burglary in 2009, while David Hill was given a four-and-a-half-year tariff for robbery in 2011.
The other four received DPP sentences. Andre Hurst was given a four-year tariff for aggravated burglary and grievous bodily harm in 2008, although the CCRC says he should have received an IPP sentence. Gemma Smith received a 22.5-month tariff for robbery in 2005, while Scott Hulme was sentenced for causing grievous bodily harm with intent in 2009, with a tariff of one year and 243 days. Ryan Helstern, who was 17 at the time, received a 27-month tariff for robbery in 2012.
The CCRC said it had considered recent Court of Appeal judgments, including R v Williams [2024] EWCA Crim 686 and R v Davis & Others [2026] EWCA Crim 743. It believes there is a real possibility the court may find that sentencing judges gave insufficient weight to the applicants’ youth and immaturity when assessing their dangerousness and the risk they posed.
IPP sentences were introduced for people considered dangerous who did not receive a life sentence. DPP sentences applied to children under 18. Both were abolished in 2012, but the change did not automatically release people already serving them.
Dame Vera Baird KC, chair of the CCRC, said: ‘These seven applicants were all young when sentenced; all received relatively short tariffs, yet all remain in custody long after those tariffs expired.’
She added: ‘Considering recent Court of Appeal decisions, we believe there is a real possibility that insufficient weight was given to their youth and immaturity when their dangerousness was assessed.’
Baird said the commission remained committed to identifying cases in which developments in the law suggested an indeterminate sentence might have been wrongly imposed.
The referrals do not overturn the sentences. The Court of Appeal will decide whether they should be quashed.
