The prison sentence handed to a teenager who killed his mother and siblings before planning to carry out the deadliest school shooting in history is already being challenged, the Daily Express can reveal.
Nicholas Prosper, 19, killed his mother Juliana Falcon, 48, and siblings Giselle, 13, and Kyle, 16 and was only prevented from killing more than 30 pupils and their teachers at his former primary school when his family intervened on Sept 13 last year.
He was today jailed for a minimum of 49 years after a judge said he was not handed a whole life order partly because he was 18 at the time of the attacks.
But the sentence has already been referred to the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme, this newspaper understands.
The case could now be considered for referral to the Court of Appeal.
Explaining her decision not to impose a whole life order, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told Luton Crown Court: “Firstly, because you were thwarted from completing your intentions, otherwise this case would have had a very different and even more appalling outcome.
“Secondly, this prosecution has resulted in guilty pleas.
“Thirdly, you were 18 at the relevant time at the bottom of the bracket, and I have available a substantial finite term well above the starting point.”
Delivering her sentencing remarks, she said he had “intended to unleash disaster on the community of Luton”.
She said the facts of Prosper’s case were “chilling”, and that he had wanted to emulate and outdo the US school massacres at Sandy Hook in 2012 and Virginia Tech in 2007.
His case featured many “recurrent themes” seen in school shootings, she said, a young male perpetrator who chose a “uniform” for the killings, had a sexual interest in children, withdrew into an online world and showed a lack of empathy towards victims.
Going through the details of the horror that unfolded at the flat, Mrs Cheema-Grubb described how Prosper’s mother had woken first, realising something was “terribly wrong”.
“She struggled with you before you shot her in the head at very close range in the hallway, you placed a novel with the title How To Kill Your Family on her legs.”
His sister Giselle then woke up, and he shot her from a distance, grazing the back of her head.
The court heard how the “terrified girl” tried to hide under a table, but he then fatally shot her above the right eye.
Kyle woke up and tried to hide in the kitchen, grabbing a knife to protect himself.
“It was an unequal contest,” the judge said. “You shot him in the chest from a distance, but then, while he was still alive and moving, stabbed and slashed him more than 100 times to his head, face, neck, torso and limbs, while he pleaded with you not to kill him.”
Kyle then ran to the hallway, where Prosper fatally shot him in the head.
Addressing Prosper, the judge said: “You intended to unleash disaster on the community of Luton.
“Your plans were intelligent, calculating and selfish. Your ambition was notoriety. You wanted to be known posthumously as world’s most famous school shooter of the 21st century.”
She said the lives of his family were to be “collateral damage” for him to achieve this aim.
“Words such as heartless and brutal are insufficient for the last moments of the people who were closest to you,” she added.
The judge said that although she was “troubled by this shocking case”, she did not believe a whole life order was appropriate.
“Having reflected, I agree with the parties, and I do not impose a whole life order in this case,” she said.
“Firstly because you were thwarted from completing your intentions, otherwise this case would have had a very different and even more appalling outcome.
“Secondly, this prosecution has resulted in guilty pleas.
“Thirdly, you were 18 at the relevant time, at the bottom of the bracket for the power provided for in section 321 3C.”