John Farquhar v. His Majesty’s Advocate [2025] HCJAC 36

Note of appeal against sentence:- The appellant first appeared on petition on a charge of murder on 23 October 2023 and was remanded in custody. At the Preliminary Hearing on 1 October 2024 he offered to plead guilty to culpable homicide. The Crown rejected his plea and a Dedicated Floating Trial was fixed for 14 July 2025. On 12 March 2025 the appellant gave notice that he would plead guilty to a charge of murder and a charge of attempting to defeat the ends of justice. The appellant was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment with a punishment part of 22 years fixed, discounted from 23 years to reflect the plea of guilty. The punishment part also took into account the concurrent sentence of 3 years imposed in relation to the attempt to defeat the ends of justice charge and that he was on bail at the time of the offences. The appellant appealed against the sentence imposed it being contended that the punishment part of 22 years was excessive. It was submitted on behalf of the appellant that the murder arose spontaneously and was not premeditated. It was recognised that it was a terrible crime and had had a significant impact upon the deceased’s family. It was submitted, however, that there had been an early acceptance of responsibility for causing the death of the deceased for which he had expressed remorse and there had been a significant passage of time since his last conviction for serious violence in 2006. Here the court refused the appeal against sentence. The court described the murder as “particularly serious” referring to the circumstances of it and the infliction of four serious knife wounds to the deceased’s neck and attempts to inflict more only thwarted by the deceased’s defensive actions. Further, the violence was inflicted on the deceased in his own home at a time when the deceased presented no threat to the appellant, with the appellant leaving him to die without making any attempt to seek assistance for him and then seeking to conceal what he had done. Further it was noted that the appellant was on bail at the time of the commission of the murder and had three previous convictions for violence from the high court. The court did not consider that there was any mitigation in his earlier plea of guilty to culpable homicide in circumstances where the conduct clearly amounted to murder and that any remorse exhibited by the appellant should be viewed in those circumstances.