The daughter of an 80-year-old man who was killed last September has said she is “disappointed” after the court of appeal refused to increase the sentence of a teenage boy convicted of his death.
Susan Kohli, whose father, Bhim Kohli, died after being assaulted by two teenagers while walking his dog near his home in Braunstone Town, Leicestershire, has called for sentencing guidelines to be changed, feeling that the duo who killed him should have faced harsher sentences than they received in June.
“We need to go to parliament to get these guidelines changed, to hold these youths responsible for what they do,” she said. “We should not have to lose somebody else to these youngsters.”
The boy, aged 15 at the time of sentencing, was found guilty of manslaughter in April. He received a seven-year custodial sentence, while his accomplice, a girl aged 13, was given a three-year rehabilitation order with a six-month curfew and community service. Neither can be named for legal reasons.
The solicitor general, Lucy Rigby, who referred the boy’s sentence to the court of appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, said she believed the case’s seriousness qualified the sentence for reconsideration but respected the court’s decision, and that her thoughts were with Kohli’s “friends and family, and everyone impacted by this horrendous crime”.
The boy’s defence team attempted to have the sentence reduced.
At a hearing on Wednesday, Lady Justice Macur, who assessed the case alongside Mrs Justice Cutts and Mr Justice Murray, said the current sentence was neither unduly lenient nor excessive, calling it a “very significant sentence and necessarily so”.
She said the sentence was “entirely warranted by the seriousness of the offence. It is unarguable that the sentence was manifestly excessive.”
Speaking after the pair were first sentenced in June, Susan Kohli claimed her father had been repeatedly targeted by youths in the area, with the abuse being racially motivated, something that both teenagers denied while standing trial. She also claimed that the police were aware of the problem and should have had a greater presence in the area.
Kohli, who was found by his family after the beating, told a paramedic that he had been called slurs during the assault, which resulted in a broken neck and three broken ribs. He was taken to hospital but died the next day.
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During the trial the court was shown footage recorded by the girl that showed the boy, wearing a balaclava, assaulting Kohli while the girl laughed. A separate video showed Kohli lying motionless on the ground.
Other footage recovered by police from the girl’s phones included a video of an unknown man being accosted by a group of children, one of them calling him a “paki bastard” and hitting him while the girl could be heard laughing.
