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Huddersfield double murderer Marcus Osborne has had his appeal to reduce his sentence rejected.
Osborne was handed a whole life order in March this year after murdering his ex-partner, Katie Higton, and her new partner, Steven Harnett.
Osborne – who had been bailed after Katie told police she feared he would seriously hurt or kill her – was told he will never be released from prison when he was sentenced earlier this year. The horrific brutality shown by Osborne shocked the nation and left Huddersfield reeling. It was later discovered Osborne had previously been jailed for attacks on other partners.
He lured Katie home to her address in Harpe Inge, Dalton, in the early hours of May 15 last year after she enjoyed a cinema date with Steven. He attacked her “immediately” at her front door, subjecting her to 99 separate injuries with a knife.
In vile, sadistic, torture, as another woman at the address pleaded to be allowed to hold Katie as she died, murderous Osborne refused, telling her: “She’s going to die on her own now, the b****”.
He then used Katie’s phone to lure Steven to the house, using the weapon to kill and mutilate him. Osborne went on to rape a woman at the address, telling her: “Shut up, this is the last time I’ll have sex in a long time.”
He then made attempts to clean up some of the blood in the hallway and went on to clean both Katie and Steven’s bodies before having a bath himself and posing them in the living room. Leeds Crown Court heard at the time that he then invited a 16-year-old girl, who knew Katie and Steven, over to the house. She arrived with her mother and he showed her their lifeless bodies lying in the living room. She described how Osborne seemed to be “showing them off, as if proud of what he’d done”, the court heard.
He had stripped the bodies and mutilated Steven’s genitals. Steven had been alive at the time, the court heard. Ambulance crews arrived soon after to find the house “immaculate” with “no sign of blood in the room or bodies.”
Osborne was described as a “murderous beast” by Katie’s father. On Wednesday, Osborne’s lawyers told the Court of Appeal that the sentence should be reduced as the judge had failed to take into account his guilty pleas, and that the whole life order was “not necessary”.
But three senior judges dismissed the appeal bid, with the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr describing the killings as “planned and brutal murders motivated by sexual jealousy”.
(Image: West Yorkshire Police)
She said: “(The sentencing judge) was entitled to consider this was not a borderline case, and to be in no doubt as to its gravity, being of such exceptional seriousness that even a very long minimum term would not amount to just punishment. The facts of these two murders, together with their associated offences and taking into account relevant aggravating factors, are so horrific, that whole life terms were appropriate, despite the applicant’s guilty pleas.
“At the end of the day, these were two planned and brutal murders motivated by sexual jealousy and involving sexual conduct, committed in circumstances designed to maximise the depravity of the murders by an individual with a history of significant violence against one of the victims, and previous domestic partners.”
John Elvidge KC, for Osborne, told the court in London that his guilty pleas should have been given “heavy weight” as they spared the rape victim from having to give evidence.
But Baroness Carr, sitting with Lord Justice Jeremy Baker and Mr Justice Bennathan, dismissed the challenge, stating that some of Ms Higton’s injuries “were inflicted with the intention of disfiguring as well as killing” and that the original sentencing decision “cannot be impugned”.
She said: “We do not accept the submission that the judge inappropriately reduced the weight to be attached to the applicant’s guilty pleas.” Osborne attended the hearing via a video link from HMP Wakefield, wearing a grey Adidas jumper, and did not react as his appeal bid was dismissed.
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