Febuary 2002 Eye poke killer jailed A MAN who murdered his girlfriend’s baby son by poking him in the eyes with his fingers was jailed for life.  Billy Woodhouse brutally attacked six-month-old Leiton Rowlands while mum went to the doctor.  He left the child with massive head injuries by throwing him against a hard surface before inflicting the fatal injuries.  Woodhouse, 24, who has four of his own children, told Winchester Crown Court the baby fell.  After the verdict the mum, of Havant, Hants, said: “Justice has been done.” Woodhouse can apply for parole as early as March 2009 The court case THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE COOKE 1. I was the trial judge for Mr Woodhouse in January and February 2002.  As there has been no notification in writing by the Secretary of State of the minimum period which, in the view of the Secretary of State, should be served before the applicant is to be released on licence, under the provisions of Schedule 22 paragraph 6 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the issue has been referred to me to make an order under section 269 (2) or (4) of that Act.  The applicant was aged 24 at the date of the death of the 6 month old victim on 7 March 2001. 2. This is not a case which falls within s 269(4) of the Act as being so serious that the early release provisions of Section 28 (5)-(8) of the Crime Sentences Act 1997 should not apply and I order that they will apply when the applicant has served the part of the sentence which is specified in this order. 3. In dealing with this reference, I have had regard to the matters specified in s 269 (5) and Schedule 21 to the Act and to my recommendation, as the trial judge, and that of the Lord Chief Justice to the Home Secretary as to the minimum term to be served by the applicant before release on licence.  I recommended 10 years, whilst the Lord Chief Justice recommended 8 years. 4. I not only must have regard to the seriousness of the offence and the factors set out in Schedule 21, but also to the terms of paragraph 8 of Schedule 22 which provide that I may not make an order specifying a part of the sentence which is, in the opinion of the Court, greater than that which, under the practice followed by the Secretary of State for the Home Office before December 2002, would have been likely to be notified by him.  This means that I must bear in mind the guidance set out in the letter of 10 February 1997 from Lord Bingham CJ to HM Judges.  5. The essential facts of the offence are as follows: (i)   The offence consisted of an assault on a 6 month old infant boy who was the son of the defendant’s partner with whom the defendant had been living for just over 2 months.  The boy was left in the care of the defendant whilst the boy’s mother went out for just over an hour.  The assault occurred at some point during a period of 45 minutes following her departure. (ii)   It appeared from the evidence that the boy was teething and had previously been grizzling that morning.  The mother had herself been impatient with the child and had thrown him on the bed in frustration at about 7.30 am.  That would not have caused any of the injuries found on the child. (iii)  At the time of the mother’s departure at 9.15 am, her evidence was that the child had been fed and was happily sitting in his bouncer chair in front of the TV. (iv)   The evidence was that at about 10.02 the defendant called the Emergency services, saying that the boy had fallen off the sofa and banged his head.  By the time of the arrival of the ambulance service at 10.13, the child appeared limp and lifeless.  Despite efforts to resuscitate him by the defendant on instructions given to him between 10.02 and 10.13 on the telephone by the emergency services, followed by efforts by the ambulance personnel and the hospital staff, he was pronounced dead at 11.45 am that day at the hospital. (v)   The medical and expert evidence showed that the child’s head was subjected to such severe impact injury as to cause a comminuted complex skull fracture, with consequent brain injury which was fatal.  There was a major line of fracture extending across the skull from right to left, partly depressed, with other lines of fracture running off it.  To one of the experts it appeared that there was more than one area of impact, but whether it was one or more impacts, the expert evidence was that the force required to cause these injuries was severe and necessitated the child’s head being banged on to a hard surface, whether by throwing the boy down or by slamming his head against something like a hard floor.  They could not have been caused by falling off a sofa as the defendant maintained.  Immediately following the inflicting of such injury, the child would have been like a rag doll.  (vi)   Together with the skull and brain damage, there were facial injuries.  There was a range of damage to both sides of the head.  There was grazing of the nose, the forehead and the mouth.  There were injuries to the outer end of the left eye and left cheek, the outer end of the right eyebrow and the right cheek and the back of the right ear flap. (vii)  In addition there were injuries to both eyes – essentially to all parts of both eyes, which the expert evidence attributed to blunt trauma to each, by fingers or knuckles. (viii)  The experts differed as to the number of impacts required to cause the skull and brain damage and as to the need for separate causation of the facial and eye injuries, whether by slaps, punches or gripping of the head. (ix)   There is no evidence of prior maltreatment of this child or any other child by this defendant.  The evidence suggests that the defendant was fond of this child and wished to adopt him.  He had a son by a previous relationship of whom he was also fond and for whose custody he had battled. (x)   The defendant did not wish harm to the child as such.  Although there was no direct evidence of this, since the defendant denied it and said that the injuries resulted from an accidental fall from the settee or alternatively from some other person’s prior maltreatment of the child, my own view is that the essential course of events was as follows.  Following the departure of the mother the child started to whinge, cry or scream.  Faced with a screaming or whining/whingeing 6 month old boy who would not respond, the defendant put him in his cot where he appears to have been sick.  The defendant removed the child’s babygrow and put it in the utility room, having cleared up the vomit with a blue towel also found there, after the event.  The boy presumably failed to respond thereafter, so the defendant put him on the bed in the bedroom where the pillows appear to have been arranged to keep him in place.  With no positive response and in the face of continuing noise from the infant, the defendant must have lost his temper and slammed the infant’s head forcefully on to a hard surface, which is likely to have been the bedroom floor.  (xi)  The acts which resulted in the infant’s death were undoubtedly brutal, but were spontaneous and confined to one episode when he must have lost his temper with a noisy child for whom he had some fondness.  He did not, in my judgment intend to kill.  He wanted the child to stop screaming and lost control.  He was convicted on the basis of a Woollin direction that the Jury should determine whether he did acts which were virtually certain to result in really serious injury to the boy and whether he appreciated at the time that this was the case.  There was immediate regret and every step was taken afterwards to call the emergency services and to revive the child in accordance with their instructions before their arrival. 6. In these circumstances the starting point under Schedule 21 would be 15 years.  The strongest mitigating factors were the defendant’s age and the lack of intention to kill.  The victim however, as a 6 month old infant, was particularly vulnerable.  Woodhouse was in a position of trust, having been left in charge of the child by his girlfriend.  There was no premeditation and the circumstances which faced him as a young man with a screaming infant whose crying he could not stop were such as to cause him to lose control and act in a fit of rage and frustration.  7. In my judgment, with a starting point of 15 years under Schedule 21, the appropriate minimum term to be served could not have been less than 10 years.  Under the letter of guidance sent to judges by Lord Bingham, the starting point would be 14 years and in my judgment, in accordance with the recommendations made by the LCJ, the period which would have been notified by the Secretary of State would have been 8 years. 8. I therefore order that the early release provisions will apply to Mr Woodhouse as soon as he has served 8 years in prison from the date of his conviction, less the period of 10 months and 23 days spent on remand.