Our son’s violent death should have been treated as murder
MUM OF ONE-PUNCH VICTIM SAYS KILLER’S 10-YEAR SENTENCE WASN’T ENOUGH
THE grieving mother of a man killed by a single punch is winning political and public support for her campaign for tougher sentencings.
Becky White’s son, Dean Skillin, 20, of Caernarfon died in an unprovoked attack outside The Waverley Hotel, Bangor, in September 2020.
The 20-year-old was on a night-out in the city when he was killed by a punch thrown by boxing enthusiast Brandon Luke Sillence, who was later handed a 10-year prison term at Caernarfon Crown Court.
In the wake of his sentencing, just before Christmas 2021, his family explained how they were left feeling like they were the ones facing life sentences.
Dean’s aunt Rachel Lock subsequently launched a petition calling on the UK government to change the sentencing for one- punch assaults so that it matches that for murder convictions.
Having already collected more than 16,000 signatures, the UK Government is now compelled to give a formal statement on the issue within the next month.
The public’s response has prompted Ms White to give her first media interview.
She told Y Byd ar Bedwar programme on S4C that her life has become a “nightmare” and has brought her “unbearable pain” since the death of her son.
“Your child goes out the door one Friday night and never comes home. It’s really painful,” she told the current affairs series.
The family’s petition described how Dean was punched from behind on a night-out with his friends.
He was hit so hard he was “dead before he hit the floor”. Dean’s cousin
Taylor Lock was also punched by Sillence at the same time.
A jury of six men and six women acquitted 25-yearold Sillence of murdering Dean, but found him guilty of manslaughter – and of causing actual bodily harm to his cousin.
A judge told Sillence he would have “punched your own shadow” that night in September 2020.
He told the family that courts are compelled to follow sentencing guidelines – and that he was acutely aware that no sentence will ever reflect the loss of a loved one.
Nevertheless, the 10-year custodial sentence was a huge disappointment to the family.
Ms White, who found it too difficult to attend the sentencing, wrote to the judge explaining that she feels her “son’s life means nothing”.
Speaking to Y Byd ar
Bedwar, she said: “You know no sentencing would have ever been enough for my son’s life, but I would have liked to see more – and for all the other families that have had to lose someone.”
She wants to see sentences for one-punch assaults that cause death to be increased to match those for murder, resulting in life imprisonment.
Ms White added: “I want to see it equal to murder if you kill somebody with your fist.
“’Cause if you kill someone with one bullet, one stab, why is it different with one punch? Because that’s their weapon – so why is it different?
“He’ll be out by the time he’s 35. And we’ve got this for life.”
The Ministry of Justice told the programme it is planning to increase sentences for the most serious offenders.
However, proving an intention to kill, as with murder, is difficult when a single punch is thrown, according to defence lawyer Eilian Williams.
Neither is a fist recognised as a weapon in a legal setting, and it depends on the circumstances, such as if a person is a trained fighter, he said.
Mr Williams told last Thursday night’s programme: “More often than not, it’s a fight in a street – it’s difficult then for the jury to decide whether that was intentional from the beginning.”
Official figures are hard to come by but charities estimate that more than 100 cases involving onepunch deaths have taken place since 2007.
Many have made the headlines in Wales, with Keyron Curtis, Carl Chinnock and Wrexham’s Karl
Saffy all losing their lives to a single punch in 2021.
Y Byd ar Bedwar also heard from Dehenna Davison, Conservative MP for Bishop Auckland in the north east of England.
She lost her father Dominic to a one-punch assault in 2007 when she was just 13 years old.
Now aged 28, Ms Davison has set up the Allparty Parliamentary Group for One Punch Assaults with the aim of delivering proposals to Parliament based on the real-life experiences of victims’ families.
She spoke with Ms White and Dean’s aunt Rachel Lock when they took their campaign to Westminster.
Ms Davison told them she is looking into the potential of creating a new category of offence for crimes like one-punch assaults and killings.
On Thursday night’s programme, she conceded there is still a “long way to go” – but that there is “an appetite within Parliament
and within government to see things changed”.
Y Byd ar Bedwar is available on BBC iplayer.