No sentence increase for dog walker’s teenage killer

A 15-year-old boy sentenced for the manslaughter of an 80-year-old man he racially abused and fatally attacked will not have his sentence extended.

The boy left Bhim Kohli with three broken ribs and other fractures during the attack, which occurred when the victim was walking his dog in Franklin Park in Leicestershire on 1 September. Mr Kohli died in hospital from his injuries the next day.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was given seven years in custody for manslaughter but in July the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) referred the case under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme.

At the Court of Appeal on Wednesday, moves to have the sentence increased were rejected.

Lady Justice Macur, sitting alongside Mrs Justice Cutts and Mr Justice Murray, ruled the boy’s sentence was neither unduly lenient nor manifestly excessive.

She said: “We consider that the judge conscientiously executed the necessary sentencing exercise and conveyed his remarks to offender and co-defendant with great skill.

“We do not find that the sentence was unduly lenient.”

Regarding a defence attempt to reduce the sentence, she said: “The sentence was a very significant sentence and necessarily so.

“It is entirely warranted by the seriousness of the offence. It is unarguable that the sentence was manifestly excessive.”

The boy was convicted after a six-week trial in June at Leicester Crown Court, alongside a 13-year-old girl who also cannot be named.

She encouraged the attack by filming parts of it while laughing, with video clips showing the balaclava-clad boy hitting Mr Kohli with a shoe.

The girl took a photograph of Mr Kohli on her phone the week before the alleged incident, but denied she used this to “target” him, the trial heard.

Police also recovered a video from her phone of a group of children “confronting” an unknown man on a separate occasion, who was hit to the back of the head and was racially abused while she was heard laughing.

The girl was sentenced to a three-year youth rehabilitation order and her sentence was not referred to the Court of Appeal.

Additional reporting by PA Media.