A teenager who murdered his family will not be given a whole-life order after a bid to increase his sentence was dismissed at the Court of Appeal.
Nicholas Prosper, 19, from Luton, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 49 years after he pleaded guilty to the murder of his mother, Juliana Falcon, 48, and his siblings, Kyle Prosper, 16, and 13-year-old Giselle Prosper at Luton Crown Court in February.
During his sentencing in April, the judge said the words “heartless and brutal” were insufficient to describe the horror of the last moments suffered by his victims.
Their bodies were found at their flat in the town in September last year.
The 19-year-old was also sentenced for weapons offences, having plotted a mass shooting at his former primary school.
The Solicitor General referred Prosper’s sentence to the Court of Appeal in April, with barristers telling a hearing in London that a whole-life term was a “just punishment” for the “exceptional” crimes.
Barristers for Prosper, who is due to be released in his late 60s at the earliest, said the sentence “cannot be said to be unduly lenient”.
In a ruling, the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, sitting with Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Wall, said that Prosper’s sentence was “itself a very severe sentence for a 19-year-old”.
She said: “These were undoubtedly offences of the utmost gravity, with multiple features incorporating disturbing, recurrent themes around school shootings.”
She continued: “Had the offender been 21 or over at the time of the offending, a whole-life order would undoubtedly have been made.”
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