Belfast-based paper Sunday Life has succeeded in its campaign to get a prison sentence increased for a man who murdered his ex-girlfriend by stabbing her 77 times.
Conor Doyle was sentenced to a minimum of ten years jail in July after a judge said the fact he was drunk was a mitigating factor in the killing of 23year-old Angela Snoddy.
Sunday Life launched Justice for Angela, backing a campaign started by the murdered woman’s mother Helen.
The paper printed copies of a petition urging the case to be referred back to the Court of Appeal and persuaded thousands of readers to sign it.
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith referred the case back to the Court of Appeal and this week the minimum sentence for Doyle was increased from 10 to 15 years. Helen Snoddy praised the paper’s involvement, saying: “I couldn’t have done it without the Sunday Life.”
Sunday Life editor Martin Lindsay said: “It was a very tragic case and it was a good result for us. It’s unusual in cases like this to get such a clear-cut result.”
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