A life sentence dealt to a man who stabbed his father 26 times “skewed” incorrectly towards deterrence and retribution over treatment, according to the Court of Appeal.

While Tyshaun Brown was sentenced to spend at least 12 years of a life sentence behind bars for manslaughter, an Appeal Panel last week reduced his sentence to one of 20 years, with eligibility for parole after one third of the sentence is served.

In a written decision, Justice of Appeal Sir Anthony Smellie said Brown was someone who would likely benefit from treatment.

“Unlike as the learned judge found, the deadly attack upon his father was not triggered by any premeditated sense of longstanding enmity or hatred,” he wrote.

Sir Anthony added that Brown’s mother and Sebastian Henagulph, a psychiatrist, had told the court that despite resentment bred from feelings of abandonment, Brown usually got along well with his father.

“There had been no previous history of violent interaction between them,” he said.

“The tragic killing was truly the result of a state of abnormality of mind in the appellant triggered primarily by his recognisable medical conditions of PTSD and PGD and such that there was no reason to believe that with suitable treatments, there would be a real risk of the appellant engaging in similar, although not necessarily fatal, behaviours particularly under the influence of alcohol.”

Sir Anthony added: “In the end, the learned judge’s assiduous attempt at assimilation of the UK guidelines notwithstanding, her analysis became, in my view, too skewed in favour of deterrence and retribution and away from the equally valid objectives of treatment and rehabilitation.

“In this way, her sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum term of 12 years imprisonment without eligibility for parole was a disproportionate dispensation.”

The court had heard Amon Brown, 52, died on July 8, 2020 after an argument with his son on St Mary’s Road, on Cedar Hill, Warwick.

The court heard that he had driven his son to the house of his mother, Margaret Moore, after he picked him up from a cricket game in Somerset.

The two argued over the defendant’s former wife, and Brown phoned his sister, Shauntorri Franks, at 11.30pm and shouted: “I’m going to kill Daddy.”

The summary of evidence said Brown hit his father and knocked him off the porch, punched him several times, then went inside and told Ms Moore that he was going to “get a knife to kill Amon because he deserved to die”.

Brown handed the phone to his terrified mother, who phoned 911 as her son grabbed a knife and stabbed his father several times.

Brown chased his father, threatened a neighbour who tried to intervene and knifed Mr Brown, including a wound to the heart.

He later told police: “I killed my own daddy, bro, I did it — I deserve life”.

At his sentencing last April, Puisne Judge Shade Subair Williams said there was a significant risk that Brown would cause serious harm to others, including members of his own family, and sentenced him to life in prison.

She told the court: “The accused knew all too well on July 8, 2020, that he was filled with a long-lasting and high dose of anger and hurt inside of him and he knew that his excessive alcohol consumption would inevitably lure him into an uncontrolled and violent disposition.

“In his defence, I accept that he may not have envisaged the extremities of his violent conduct.”

The Court of Appeal, however, found that Mrs Justice Subair Williams had gone too far with her analysis of Brown’s mental responsibility.

Sir Anthony wrote: “While it will remain legitimate to enquire, as part of the sentencing exercise, as to the extent of an accused’s retained mental responsibility for an offence of manslaughter, the analysis should not result in the proper basis of the plea of diminished responsibility itself being doubted.”

He added that while it was a matter for the court to determine if an accused person continued to pose a risk of harm, it was problematic for a judge to determine the length of sentence required to ensure treatment without due regard to medical evidence.

Sir Anthony wrote that Dr Henagulph had told the court treatment could be delivered in prison and after Brown’s release during a period of supervision.

“This advice does not suggest the need for either an indeterminate life sentence or a lengthy minimum period of incarceration of 12 years in order for the delivery of an effective programme of treatment,” he wrote.

“Indeed, nowhere in the learned judge’s analysis does the doctor’s advice appear to bear any relationship to her conclusions in that regard.

“Instead, the minimum term of 12 years appears to be the outcome simply of her subjective sense both of the need for an environment of incarceration and of the period required.”

As a result, the court replaced the life sentence with one of 20 years with eligibility for parole after six years and eight months with the recommendation that Brown receives treatment beginning immediately and continuing upon his release if advised by the attending psychiatrist.

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