However, a legal technicality means the appeal court will not consider whether Belfield’s sentence should be increased, the Guardian has learned. Belfield is appealing for a lower jail sentence, prompting calls for the law to be reformed to give victims more time to appeal under the “unjustly lenient system” (ULS). Under current law, anyone can appeal to the attorney general, the government’s chief legal adviser, if they believe someone has received too low a sentence. If the attorney general agrees, they can refer the case to the appeals court. They must do so within 28 days. London victims’ commissioner Claire Waxman, herself a victim of stalking, called for Belfield’s case to be reviewed within the 28-day deadline under the ULS. Michael Tomlinson, the solicitor-general, who deputizes for the attorney-general, wrote back to say he agreed that the sentencing judge at Nottingham Crown Court, Mr Justice Saini, had “fallen into error”. Tomlinson said the judge should have applied a more up-to-date law when sentencing Belfield for one of his crimes in particular – the nine-year stalking campaign against another local BBC presenter, Bernie Keith, who he said was “seconds far away”. from suicide as a result. The Policing and Crime Act 2017 imposes a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison “for any conduct which began before that date but took place in a period lasting on or after 3 April 2017”. Instead, Saini relied on an older law that carried a maximum sentence of five years, based on Belfield’s pursuit of Keith before 2017, and chose to give him two years and six months for what he did to Keith. Belfield ended up serving five-and-a-half years when the judge imposed a series of consecutive sentences to be served back-to-back. Tomlinson wrote back to Waxman to say: “I agree with your analysis that the judge erred in concluding that the lower maximum sentence was applicable in relation to the offense against Bernard Keith and therefore the sentence may be unduly lenient.” But instead of triggering the ULS, Tomlinson remanded the matter back to the sentencing judge to address the error under the “sliding rule.” The matter was listed before the sentencing judge on Oct. 21 “and, although he agreed that there had been an error in his approach to sentencing, he declined to interfere with the sentence,” Tomlinson wrote. Tomlinson added that it was too late to refer ULS because “the statutory deadline for referring to the appeal court has now passed”. Although Waxman’s original request was submitted within 20 days “unfortunately I cannot refer to this proposal as potentially unduly lenient,” he said. He added: “I understand that the offender is seeking to appeal the sentence and, if he does, my office will ask the CPS to bring the error of the sentence to the court’s attention.” Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Waxman expressed frustration with the inflexibility of the 28-day ULS rule and called for it to be reformed. “I have long called for the ULS system to be reformed to allow the 28-day deadline to be extended in exceptional circumstances. a right afforded to the perpetrator but not to the victim,” he said. “This case is a perfect example of where such discretion is needed – where the CPS and the judiciary have clearly committed and acknowledged an error in sentencing, but due process has run out of time to appeal. I will continue to call for ULS reform under the upcoming Victims Act to ensure victims are not failed in the sentencing process.” The appeals court said Belfield had applied for leave to appeal his sentence, but that it would be several months before the judge decided whether to grant it.
