Court of Appeal dismisses sentence appeal in Liam O'Pray murder case

The Court of Appeal has dismissed Liam O'Pray's sentence appeal, upholding a 28-year minimum term for the murder of Rico Burton and wounding of Harvey Reilly with intent. The appeal centred on whether the sentencing judge adequately considered the appellant's age and maturity when imposing sentence.

On 21 August 2022, O'Pray, then aged 22, had spent the evening drinking and taking cocaine whilst carrying a lock knife in bars around Goose Green, Altrincham. After being refused re-entry to various establishments and behaving aggressively towards staff, he became involved in a confrontation outside King Pong bar in the early hours.

During the incident, O'Pray stabbed Rico Burton in the neck with a 6cm deep wound that almost completely severed his left carotid artery, causing fatal haemorrhage. He then slashed Harvey Reilly twice, inflicting life-threatening injuries including a 14cm gaping wound to the chest wall and severe damage to his left arm. Reilly survived only due to swift police first aid but suffered devastating long-term consequences, ending his engineering career and leaving him with permanent disability and chronic pain.

The sentencing decision

Manchester Crown Court applied the Schedule 21 starting point of 25 years for a murder involving a knife brought to the scene. The judge identified numerous aggravating features: O'Pray's escalating pattern of violent and threatening behaviour throughout the evening, his previous conviction for carrying a bladed article, regular knife carrying, and intoxication by drink and drugs.

In mitigation, the judge accepted that murder was not intended and the violence was not pre-meditated, though he characterised it as "a stabbing waiting to happen" given O'Pray's conduct. Crucially, the judge acknowledged the appellant's "relative youth and evidence as to mental functioning and lack of maturity", affording this "some limited weight" in reducing culpability.

The wounding of Reilly warranted a five-year uplift to the minimum term. The judge arrived at 23 years for the murder alone, then increased this to 28 years to reflect the totality of offending.

The appeal and maturity assessment

Leave to appeal was granted on the narrow ground that the judge failed to have sufficient regard to O'Pray's youth and immaturity. The Court ordered a pre-appeal report, which revealed an OASys maturity score of 15 (any score over 10 indicating low maturity relative to chronological age). The probation officer identified substance abuse, peer relationships, and low maturity as likely influences, with adverse childhood experiences and possible neurodiversity affecting impulse control.

The Court acknowledged that expert psychological evidence on maturity can assist sentencing decisions, but emphasised such opinion must be properly tethered to the facts of the offence. In this case, the defence psychologist Dr Adlard had been unable to complete a full maturity assessment before sentencing, providing only general observations about factors potentially affecting psychosocial development.

The Court's decision

Delivering the Court of Appeal's judgement, Mrs Justice Stacey DBE recognised that whilst a further adjournment for reports would have been preferable, the sentencing judge had made a significant reduction for age and immaturity. The two-year downward adjustment from the starting point, resulting in 23 years for murder before the uplift, adequately reflected the mitigation available given the substantial aggravating features.

The Court noted that limited mitigation arose from lack of intent to kill where death risk was so very great, and lack of pre-meditation had to be viewed against O'Pray carrying the knife throughout the evening with escalating confrontational behaviour. The appeal was dismissed, confirming the 28-year minimum term as neither manifestly excessive nor wrong in principle.