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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
National
Kieran Isgin

Killer Wayne Couzens to die in jail after he loses appeal against whole-life tariff

Former police officer Wayne Couzens will likely die in prison after he lost his bid to reduce his sentence at the Court of Appeal.

Senior judges heard challenges and appeals to prison sentences in May against five convicted killers. Among these included the whole-life terms for Couzens and double murdered Ian Stewart.

Emma Tustin and Thomas Hughes, who killed Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, six, also had their sentences reviewed alongside triple murderer Jordan Monaghan.

Read more: Idiot instigated argument in Manchester city centre and ended up getting stabbed in the neck

On Friday, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett and four other judges refused to lower Couzens' sentence. He was handed a whole life term last year for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, 33.

It was the first time the sentence had been enforced for a single murder of an adult not committed in the course of a terror attack. Couzens' lawyer argued that he deserved "decades in jail" but not a while-life term.

In a summary read out in court, Lord Burnett said that the sentencing judge was completely entitled to impose the sentence due to the facts surrounding Couzens' case. Meanwhile, the judge refused to change Tustin's sentence of 21 years for manslaughter after finding that she should not be given a whole life order.

However, Hughes's sentence was in fact increased to 24 years after the previous sentence was found to be unduly lenient. Double killer Stewart, who murdered his wife of six years before murdering his fiance successfully appealed against his whole-life order.

Amjad Malik QC for Stewart argued that the whole-life order he was given for the murder of his first wife was unjustified in the current circumstances surrounding the case. Lord Burnett and four other judges said during Friday's ruling that Stewart was "not one of the rare cases" where a whole-life order should be imposed - it was reduced to life with a 35-year minimum term.

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