Neutral Citation No EWHC 949 (QB) ...Regina & Colin Dorey

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Neutral Citation Number: [2006] EWHC 949 (QB) ...Regina & Colin Dorey

January 20 2008 at 9:47 AM morse

Response to one of Hugh (Mark Harvey) Seroxat 314 is a wife

killer

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Minimum terms

High Court setting of minimum terms for mandatory life sentences

under the Criminal Justice Act 2003

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Neutral Citation Number: [2006] EWHC 949 (QB)

Case No: 2004/411/MTS

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand, London, WC2A 2LL

Date: 10/05/2006

Before :

MR JUSTICE WILKIE

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Between :

REGINA

- and -

COLIN DOREY

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Setting of minimum term schedule 22 para 3 of Criminal Justice Act

2003

Trial dates: 28 August 2002

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Approved Judgment

I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand

note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version

as handed down may be treated as authentic.

..............................

MR JUSTICE WILKIE

MR JUSTICE WILKIE

1. As required by paragraph 6 of Schedule 22 of the Criminal Justice

Act 2003 the Secretary of State has referred the case of Colin Dorey

to the High Court for an order under sub-section 2 of section 269 of

the Act in relation to the mandatory life sentence which he is

currently serving. Paragraph 7 of Schedule 22 requires the Court,

in considering, under sub-section 3 of section 269, the seriousness

of the offence, to have regard to the matters mentioned in sub-

section 5 of section 269 and the recommendation made to the Secretary

of State by the trial judge. In this case the recommendation of the

trial judge was 10 years and the recommendation of the Lord Chief

Justice was also 10 years. Furthermore, the Court may not make any

order under sub-section 2 of section 269 specifying a part of the

sentence which in the opinion of the Court is greater than that

which, under the practice followed by the Secretary of State before

December 2002, the Secretary of State would have been likely to

notify as the minimum period which, in the view of the Secretary of

State, should be served before the prisoner's release on licence

pursuant to paragraph 2(a) of Schedule 22.

2. In the present case I have had regard to the written

representations as to the minimum term made on behalf of the

prisoner. The prisoner has not requested an oral hearing.

3. I have also had regard to the victim personal statements of the

deceased's parents Hugh Buxton and Buxton. I note in

particular the major impact which their daughter's death has had on

their lives not only in terms of the emotional shock but also in

terms of the major commitment they have had to undertake in caring

for and bringing up their daughter's children.

4. The prisoner was born on 27 April 1959. On 28 August 2002 at the

Ipswich Crown Court he was found guilty by the jury by a majority

verdict of 10-2 of the murder of his wife Dorey on 3

January 2002.

5. At 10.35pm on 3 January 2002 a 999 call was made by the defendant

who asked police to go to the matrimonial home. He said he had

killed his wife and that there were young children in the house.

Police went to the address just after 11pm and gained access by

virtue of a key left in the front door. They found Dorey

dead on a sofa completely covered in a blood soaked blanket. She

had sustained multiple severe head injuries. Upstairs were the 3

children of the family. At about 12.15am on Friday 4 January a

further 999 call was received from the defendant saying that he had

killed his wife and wanted to turn himself in. He was arrested some

10 minutes later and was described as being dazed and pre-

occupied. He asked if his children were OK and he volunteered the

kids were there when I did it. He also said that he would face the

music rather than top himself.

6. The police found in his car a bloodstained hammer which he had

purchased from B & Q earlier that day. They also recovered from the

car a wood handled kitchen knife, a packet of Seroxat tablets and a

bottle of sherry with the seal opened.

7. The post mortem revealed that death was caused by at least 7

impacts with a heavy blunt object to the left side of the skull and

left side of the face. The pathologist could not exclude the first

blow to the head having been delivered whilst the head was uncovered

and he could not be sure whether the deceased was awake when the

first blow was struck but the remaining blows were delivered when the

head of the victim was covered by the blanket.

8. Upon interview in the course of the 4th and 5th of January the

prisoner explained that he was experiencing marital problems and

believed that his wife was having an affair with another man. She

had told him that if she were single she would go off with the other

man at the drop of a hat. He said that he just flipped. He had

the hammer in his bag, he remembered picking it up but didn't

remember anything else of what happened. He said that he had

purchased the hammer in order to knock down the children's

playhouse. Two other hammers were discovered in the house and the

garden shed. There were other potential weapons in the house.

9. The defence called a consultant psychiatrist as a witness. The

prosecution consultant was not called. There was agreement that the

defendant was psychologically disordered at the material time. The

defence consultant considered that he had suffered from a depressive

illness of a mild to moderate degree amounting to an abnormality of

mind which had arisen through a combination of inherent factors and

in response to a psychological injury. It was not considered that

the defendant was presently in need of any psychiatric treatment.

The defence expert had no doubt that he was aware of what he was

doing when he killed his wife. The trial judge made a

recommendation to the Secretary of State of a minimum term of 10

years with which the Lord Chief Justice agreed. The mitigating

factors which were present were his guilty plea to an alternative

count of manslaughter, his previous good character, the fact that he

was previously a good husband and father, there was no history of

domestic violence, he had well founded grounds for believing that his

wife had recently embarked on an affair, when his wife had last had

an affair 10 years previously he had accepted as his own the child

born as a result of that relationship, the case came close to

borderline between murder and manslaughter, he suffered from a

depressive illness and his evidence if accepted that he was provoked

by things said by his wife shortly before he killed her. One

possible aggravating factor was that the jury may have concluded that

the defendant had bought the heavy hammer in order to kill his wife.

10. Having had regard to all the circumstances to which I am obliged

to have regard pursuant to schedule 22, in my judgment the

recommendation of the trial judge and the Lord Chief Justice is one

with which I agree. Accordingly the minimum term which I fix is one

of 10 years less the 7 months and 20 days which the prisoner spent in

custody on remand.

http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/cms/144_7869.htm