This practice statement follows the decision of Thompson and Venables in the European Court of Human Rights on 16 December 1999.

That court concluded that ministers should not set tariffs for juveniles sentenced to detention during Her Majesty's pleasure.

The Home Secretary, on 13 March 2000, made a statement to Parliament that legislation is to be laid before Parliament which will provide for tariffs for defendants under 18 years of age to be set by the trial judge in open court, as they are for adults, subject to discretionary life sentences.

It is proposed that tariffs will be appealable, either by the Attorney-General if believed to be unduly lenient, or by the defendant.There are a large number of people, sentenced as juveniles, currently detained at Her Majesty's pleasure.

The Home Secretary has proposed that I should undertake a fresh review of tariffs for these existing cases.

Pending the necessary change in the law, there will also be fresh cases.

The Home Secretary announced that until any legislation is enacted, he will set any new tariffs in accordance with my recommendation as to both existing and fresh cases.

Before I make a recommendation to the Home Secretary, in both new and existing cases, I shall invite written representations from the detainees' legal advisers and also from the Director of Public Prosecutions who may include representations on behalf of victims' families.I will take as my starting point the existing approach adopted in the case of adults sentenced to a mandatory life sentence.

In the case of adults, the usual length of tariff, or punitive term (which means the amount of time actually to be served by a person convicted of murder in order to meet the requirements of retribution and general deterrence) will be a period of 14 years before the possibility of release arises for consideration at all.In all these cases, this term may be increased or red uced to allow for aggravating and mitigating features.

Without seeking to be comprehensive, aggravating features will include:-- Evidence of a planned or revenge killing.-- The killing of a child or a very old or otherwise vulnerable victim.-- Evidence of sadism, gratuitous violence, or sexual maltreatment, humiliation or degradation before the killing.-- Killing for gain (in the course of burglary, robbery, blackmail, insurance fraud, etcetera).-- Multiple killings.-- The killing of a witness or potential witness to defeat the ends of justice.-- The killing of those doing their public duty (police officers, prison officers, postal workers, firefighters, judges, etcetera)-- Terrorist, or politically motivated, killings.-- The use of firearms or other dangerous weapons, whether carried for defensive or offensive reasons.-- A record of serious violence.-- Attempts to dismember or conceal the body.Again, without seeking to be comprehensive, the following may normally be regarded as mitigating features:-- Age-- Sub-normality or mental abnormality.-- Provocation (in a non-technical sense) or an excessive response to a personal threat.-- The absence of an intention to kill.-- Spontaneity and lack of pre-meditation (beyond that necessary to constitute the offence, for example, a sudden response to family pressure or to prolonged and eventually insupportable stress).-- Mercy killing.-- A plea of guilty.-- Hard evidence of remorse or contrition.Before the first such cases are put before me to make a recommendation to the Home Secretary, it is appropriate for the general principles which will guide me in recommending tariffs to be made public.

This is because it is right that the process by which tariffs are set should be open to public scrutiny.

When making recommendations to the Home Secretary in such cases, I will announce my reasons in open court after taking into account any written representations I receive.The approach set out above, which I intend to adopt, is based on that applied by judges and myself when establishing the tariff period to recommend to the Home Secretary in the case of all mandatory sentences for murder (ie, where the sentence is life imprisonment in the case of an adult defendant).