A government lawyer has been asked to consider whether the jail term handed to an axe wielding killer who bludgeoned his housemate to death is 'unduly lenient'. Kieran Oldham received a life sentence for the murder of 21-year-old Liam Richardson.
'Evil' Oldham bludgeoned him 18 times with an axe at a house in Rochdale. After being convicted of murder he was jailed for life to serve a minimum of 22 years.
He will have to serve 22 years in prison before he can be considered for release by the Parole Board. Now it has emerged that the sentence handed down is currently being considered by the Attorney General's office to consider whether it is 'unduly lenient'.
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Under the 'unduly lenient' scheme, victims of crime, members of the public, and the Crown Prosecution Service can apply to the Attorney General, the Government's chief legal adviser, if they believe the sentences imposed by a judge are too low. It is not clear who made the submission to the Attorney General's office.
The matter is currently under consideration and no decision has been made. The Attorney General's office has 28 days from the day sentence was passed to review the case.
If the referral is deemed to have merit, the case can then be sent to the Court of Appeal where judges may decide to impose a harsher sentence.
Liam Richardson had fallen on 'difficult times' and had been living with 37-year-old Oldham before he was murdered.
Chilling voice recordings captured minutes before the killing revealed how Liam begged cocaine-fuelled Oldham to let him leave the house in October last year. Shortly after Oldham armed himself with an axe and launched a horrendous attack.
"He must have been aware of the hopelessness of his situation as he tried to fend off blows from the axe," Judge Maurice Greene said during the sentencing hearing at Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Court.
A spokesperson from the Attorney General’s Office said: "We have received a request for this sentence to be considered under the Unduly Lenient Sentence (ULS) scheme. The Law Officers have 28 days from sentencing to consider the case and make a decision."
Another recent Greater Manchester murder case was submitted as part of the 'unduly lenient' scheme. Life sentences were handed down to Kane Adamson, Joshua Prescott, and Ben Dawber after they were convicted of murdering 30-year-old Thomas Williamson, an innocent man who was brutally killed in Wigan while the trio were out 'looking for trouble'.
The judge imposed minimum terms of 20 years, 18 years and 17 years for Dawber, Adamson and Prescott respectively. Adamson, 18, Prescott, 19, and Dawber, 17, were sentenced last month following a trial at Minshull Street Crown Court.
They were hunting down a man who had just punched someone outside a bar in Tyldesley in September 2021, but then launched a sickening knife attack on the wrong person.
"The tragedy is that Thomas Williamson was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Judge Greene, who was also the presiding judge in the trio's case. The case was referred but the Solicitor General said the sentences could not be properly referred to the Court of Appeal.
A spokesperson from the Attorney General’s Office said: "The Solicitor General was shocked and deeply saddened by this case and wishes to express his sympathies to the family of Thomas Williamson. After careful consideration the Solicitor General has concluded that this case cannot properly be referred to the Court of Appeal.
"A referral under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme to the Court of Appeal can only be made if a sentence is not just lenient but unduly so, such that the sentencing judge made a gross error or imposed a sentence outside the range of sentences reasonably available in the circumstances of the offence. The threshold is a high one, and the test was not met in this case."
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