Solicitor General Ellie Reeves KC has referred the sentence of Vickrum Digwa to the Court of Appeal, with Attorney General Lord Hermer also reviewing the case, following Digwa's conviction for the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak.

Digwa, who was 23 at sentencing, was convicted at Southampton Crown Court of stabbing Nowak five times. The trial judge imposed a life sentence with a minimum tariff of 21 years, and noted that Digwa had shown a "callous disregard" in the aftermath of the killing. The referral to the Court of Appeal follows the unduly lenient sentence (ULS) procedure, under which the Law Officers — the Attorney General and the Solicitor General — may challenge a Crown Court sentence they consider insufficiently severe. If the Court of Appeal agrees, it can substitute a longer minimum term.

The ULS scheme, established under the Criminal Justice Act 1988, is a relatively narrow power. It applies only to specified offences — murder sits squarely within that list — and must be exercised within 28 days of sentencing. Crucially, the court is not simply reviewing whether the original judge erred in law; it is asked whether the sentence fell outside the range a reasonable judge could have imposed. That is a high bar. The Court of Appeal does not lightly disturb sentencing decisions, and mere disagreement with the tariff is insufficient. What matters is whether the minimum term was so short as to be wrong in principle.

For a murder conviction carrying a mandatory life sentence, the Sentencing Council's starting points vary considerably by aggravating and mitigating factors. A 21-year minimum tariff is not inherently anomalous for a defendant of Digwa's age — youth is a recognised mitigating factor under domestic sentencing guidelines and the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on diminished culpability in younger offenders. The number of stab wounds — five — and the judge's explicit finding of callousness, however, are the kind of aggravating features that the Law Officers would likely emphasise in their submission to the court.

The involvement of both the Solicitor General and the Attorney General signals that the referral is being treated with political as well as legal seriousness. In practice, the Solicitor General typically acts for the Attorney General in ULS referrals; the dual engagement here is worth noting. Whether the Court of Appeal ultimately increases the tariff will turn on the full sentencing remarks and how the judges weigh the specific facts of the attack against the statutory mitigating framework applied below.

For the Nowak family, the referral opens a period of uncertainty. A successful appeal would lengthen the minimum time Digwa must serve before he can even be considered for parole — it would not guarantee his release at that point. The Parole Board retains the discretion to keep a lifer in custody beyond the minimum tariff if it judges them to still pose a risk to the public.