The mother of murdered Ellie Gould has called for a “25-year starting point for overkill and for strangulation”, after her daughter’s killer was sentenced to a minimum of 12 years and six months in prison. Thomas Griffiths, then 17, stabbed Ellie Gould, also 17, to death at her home in Calne, Wiltshire, in May 2019, after she ended their relationship, and then arranged the scene to make it appear as though she had inflicted the fatal wounds herself.
The Government this month announced plans for killers with a history of coercive or controlling behaviour against their victims to face tougher sentences. It said the use of excessive or gratuitous violence, sometimes referred to as “overkill”, is also set to be made an aggravating factor in sentencing decisions for murder.
The law will be changed after recommendations made by Clare Wade KC in an independent review into domestic homicide sentencing, which was commissioned in 2021. Ellie’s mother, Carole Gould, who co-founded the campaigning organisation Killed Women after the death of her daughter, told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: “My husband came home in the afternoon and found his beloved daughter in a pool of blood on our kitchen floor.
