Late hearing defeated Crown’s bid to increase murder sentences

The Court of Appeal struck out the prosecution’s attempt to challenge Andre Thomas’s murder sentences in a judgment delivered on 25 September. The appeal had not been heard within the statutory period, and a renewed application could not cure that failure.

The Crown filed for permission six days after the sentences were imposed in November 2023. That filing was timely. But the trial transcript arrived only ten days before the separate 12-month hearing period expired, and permission was not granted until July 2025.

The court held that section 18A(9)(a) of the Judicature (Appellate Jurisdiction) Act measured the hearing period from the permission application, rather than the later grant of permission. Although the Crown was not blamed for the subsequent delay, the statute supplied no power to extend that period. Filing again could not reset it.

The prosecution appeal was struck out and its renewed application refused. The concurrent life sentences, each carrying a 26-year parole minimum, remained in force. The judgment separately recorded that Thomas’s own renewed application against conviction and sentence had not yet been heard.

The prosecution appeal was disposed of on a statutory time bar. The merits of the sentence-increase argument and the accused’s outstanding renewed application were not determined here. Later treatment not checked.