Murderer of head fails in jail term plea

The Lord Chief Justice rejected an attempt yesterday by the murderer of the London headteacher Philip Lawrence to reduce his recommended sentence from 12 years.

Learco Chindamo was the 15-year-old leader of a teenage gang when he stabbed Mr Lawrence outside his school in December 1995.

Chindamo's lawyers said he had been transformed during nearly six years in prison. He was said to have "a very positive influence" on fellow inmates and had "developed a flair for music and drama".

But the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, also considered a letter from the headteacher's widow, Frances, who opposed a reduction in the tariff recommended by the judge at Chindamo's trial in 1996. Mrs Lawrence wrote: "Any lessening of his recommended sentence will be to destroy my family twice over."

Lord Woolf said "it would be wrong" to reduce the tariff below that recommended by the trial judge. He said 12 years was "a long period for a person of Chindamo's age" but that, in view of the circumstances, "a tariff of 14 years would not have been inappropriate".

The Lord Chief Justice said he did not want Chindamo to think that the progress he had made "has been ignored". He said: "It is because of that progress I have been able to select 12 years. The progress he has already made and the progress I anticipate he will make in the future means that when his case comes to be considered by the parole board, the board's decision is more likely to be favourable than would be the case otherwise."

Chindamo, who is now 21 and at Swinfen Hall prison in Staffordshire, will not be eligible for release on licence for a further six years.

Mr Lawrence was killed in December 1995 outside St George's Roman Catholic School in Maida Vale, west London, when a gang of 12 youths led by Chindamo went to attack a boy who had quarrelled with a pupil of Filipino origin. The street gang was reputed to have links to the Wo Sing Wo triad.

Chindamo said he was 30 feet from the murder scene and had been confused with another youth wearing his jacket. In November 1997, the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal against the murder conviction.

Lord Woolf said Chindamo had written a letter of apology to Mrs Lawrence. "This is an eloquent letter, which fully sets out his regret," he said.

But Chindamo's apology was not sent because prison authorities believed it "would only cause Mrs Lawrence more anguish". Unaware of the apology, Mrs Lawrence, who was in the High Court yesterday, had complained to the Lord Chief Justice that Chindamo had never indicated "any remorse, contrition or apology".

One of the killer's solicitors said that in 20 years of practice he could not remember a client who "made such a favourable impression on him".

Prison staff reports stated that Chindamo was a positive influence on other inmates, "pointing out to them the negative side of the 'street attitude' of the type of gangs of which he had been a leader".

But a senior psychologist reported last July that she was not convinced that tests proved Chindamo had fully reformed his "attitudes towards loyalty and use of violence".

Lord Woolf was setting the tariff in the case after a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in 1999 that the Home Secretary was not entitled to decide the length of such sentences.