Man who murdered his mum and siblings and planned school shooting to have sentence reviewed

The sentence of triple murderer Nicholas Prosper, who killed his family and was planning a school shooting in Luton, has been referred to the Court of Appeal.

The referral has been made under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme, the Attorney General's Office said on Wednesday. Prosper, 19, pleaded guilty to the murders of his mother, Juliana Falcon, 48, and his siblings, Kyle Prosper, 16, and 13-year-old Giselle Prosper, at Luton Crown Court in February.

Their bodies were found at their flat in the town in September last year. He was sentenced to 49 years in prison in March.

Passing sentence, High Court judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told Luton Crown Court that her duty to the public was met with the 49-year minimum term, rather than using "the sentence of last resort" and jailing him for the rest of his life. Prosper, 19, who craved notoriety, planned to carry out a mass shooting at St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, where he and his siblings had been pupils, he admitted to police.

Read more:How mother of triple killer foiled her son's school shooting plot The Solicitor General has referred Prosper's sentence to the Court of Appeal, where "it will be argued that Prosper ought to have been given a whole life order," a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office said. Defendants aged 18 to 20 have been liable to receive whole-life orders in exceptional circumstances since rules were changed in 2022.

But none of the orders imposed since then have been on criminals in that age bracket. The judge said that for defendants over the age of 21, whole-life orders can be considered in cases involving two or more murders with a significant degree of premeditation or planning, or where one child is killed with similar pre-planning.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said: "The court may arrive at a whole-life order in the case of an 18 to 20-year-old only if it considers that the seriousness of the combination of offences is exceptionally high, even by the standard of offences which would normally result in a whole-life order." She pointed to a joint submission of counsel that the lengthy finite term she imposed was severe enough because his case was not "of the utmost gravity where the sentence of last resort must be imposed on an offender who was 18 at the time and is 19 today". The risk he posed to the public was met with a life sentence, she said.

Justice Cheema-Grubb told the court she would not impose a whole-life order because Prosper was stopped from carrying out the school shooting, having murdered his family earlier than he intended after his mother woke up. He also pleaded guilty as soon as the charges were put to him after psychiatric reports had been completed, and he was 18 at the time of his crimes, which is at the lowest end of the age bracket for whole-life terms.

The Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme allows any member of the public to ask for certain Crown Court sentences to be reviewed, and if necessary, the case will be referred to the Court of Appeal. Conservative shadow justice minister Dr Kieran Mullan, who referred the sentence to the Attorney General's Office under the scheme on the day Prosper was jailed, said at the time that not handing down a whole-life sentence "makes a mockery of the justice system and is an insult to the victims".

Read more from Sky News:Tommy Robinson loses appealHackman bodycam footage releasedEx-world champion accused of child abuse At his trial, jurors heard Prosper, who was obsessed with violence and mass shootings, wanted to be known as "the world's most famous school shooter of the 21st century". Police believe he killed his family when his mother confronted him after finding a shotgun he had bought using a fake certificate.

His scheme was eventually foiled by officers who spotted him in the street immediately after the murders and arrested him. The loaded shotgun was found hidden in bushes nearby, along with more than 30 cartridges..