Kettering teenager loses bid to reduce sentence over chilling death threats

A teenager who threatened to kill a vulnerable man if he didn’t remove drugs from his bottom has lost a bid to have his jail term reduced.

Campbell McKeegans told his victim he would ‘stab him up’ while brandishing a machete in a chilling five-minute video taken in Kettering.

He was locked up for 26 months in January after a judge said his actions were too serious for any alternative sentence.

On Wednesday (June 7) the 19-year-old launched a bid to have his spell behind bars lowered, with his barrister arguing that the offence was wrongly put into the highest sentencing category.

But justices at London’s Court of Appeal ruled that Her Honour Judge Adrienne Lucking KC was entitled to do so when he was originally sentenced.

Northampton Crown Court had previously heard that the horrific incident took place just 10 days before McKeegans turned 18.

A phone video showed a man being told to insert an object into his bottom and then remove it in what appeared to be a ‘practice run’ for plugging drugs.

The victim was heard to say it was ‘humiliating’ as McKeegans and another man laughed in the background. But when the victim was told to ‘unbank’ he was unable to do it quickly.

McKeegans told his victim: "Hurry the f*** up or I am going to kill you."

The victim asked to go to the toilet but could not remove the package, which a judge ruled was ‘clearly’ drugs. McKeegans told him he had £1,000 in him and warned him: "I'm going to kill you bro, I'm going to stab you up."

Three minutes into the video he said he would ‘cut him up’ before telling the other man to give him the ‘Rambo’.

Holding a machete, McKeegans again told his victim he was going to stab him. By the time the video ended he had still not removed the package.

McKeegans said he felt he had been spiked through a cigarette and feared it was crack cocaine.

Alex Radley, mitigating, said McKeegans was remorseful and urged the case for a suspended sentence. At Wednesday’s appeal hearing he said the entry point taken by Judge Lucking KC, using sentencing guidelines, was too high for the offence.

After watching the video in chambers – a court session without the public present – she ruled that the offence fell into the highest harm category, category one, which carries a starting point of four years in prison and a range of two to seven.

But Mr Radley argued it should have been category two, for offences involving distress which is not deemed to be very serious, which carries lower sentences.

He said: "I believe in the circumstances her assertion that the case was more serious and ought to be in entry point A1 would make the difference in relation to this case.”

But Lady Justice Macur, Mr Justice Choudhury and Mr Justice Constable agreed with Judge Lucking KC that the distress caused to the victim was very significant.

Mr Justice Constable dismissed the appeal and said the sentence was not wrong or manifestly excessive.

He said: “We are of the view that the judge was not just justified but correct in determining that the offending should be categorised as harm A1.”