Murderer has sentence cut — from 25 to 22 years
A convicted murderer from Elstree, north London, has won an appeal to get his minimum sentence cut.
David Smith, 33, of Schubert Road, was jailed for his part in killing a bodybuilder he thought was a "grass".
Roger Vincent, 33, of Penn, in Buckinghamshire, was also found guilty of shooting the victim, 32-year-old Dave King, with 26 bullets fired from an AK-47 machine gun.
advertisementMr Smith was ordered to serve a minimum of 25 years behind bars and Mr Vincent, 30, at Luton Crown Court in August 2006.
Speaking at the Appeal Court last week, Lord Justice Hughes reduced Mr Smith's minimum sentence to 22 years and Mr Vincent's to 25.
He said: "This was a very serious killing. It was a ruthless, professional contract execution, carefully planned as an act of retribution amongst professional criminals.
"It was not, however, a serial killing, a killing of a police officer or of a child, and it was not a sadistic killing."
Mr King was shot by masked men in a stolen van as he emerged from the Physical Limit gym in Hoddesdon, in October 2003, and it was the prosecution case that Vincent was the gunman and Smith the driver.
Vincent and Smith believed their victim had informed on a criminal associate of theirs in a large-scale drugs case.
Both men lost their appeals against their murder convictions, with judges dismissing arguments they were "unsafe".
Once the pair have served their minimum tariffs, they will only be freed if they can persuade the Parole Board they pose no danger to the public.
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