Murderers in appeals over whole-life sentences

Two murderers have asked appeal judges to overturn orders that they can never be released.

Jamie Reynolds, a “sexual deviant” who lured a teenage girl to her death, and former soldier Anwar Rosser, who savagely killed a child in Keighley, challenged their whole-life sentences at the Court of Appeal in London.

Both watched the proceedings in their respective appeals via video link from prison.

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After hearing arguments, Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas, sitting with Mr Justice Wyn Williams and Mr Justice Sweeney, announced that the decision in both cases would be given “as soon as possible”.

He said: “We completely understand the trauma this must have caused the families of both children, but I am afraid it is an inevitable part of the way justice is done.”

The court realised “how difficult this must be for them”.

The judges had read their personal statements and they would be taken into account.

Reynolds, 23, of Wellington, Shropshire, was sentenced in December after admitting murdering former head girl Georgia Williams.

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Rosser, now 34, who admitted murdering four-year-old twin Riley Turner in a “savage and gratuitous” attack, was handed a whole-life tariff by a judge at Bradford Crown Court in February.

He was staying the night at the boy’s home near Keighley in January last year, when he stabbed and strangled the “happy and bubbly” child as he lay in his bed.

In Rosser’s case, the appeal judges were urged to find that a whole-life term was “manifestly excessive”, and that instead a “very long” finite minimum term should have been imposed.