AN APPEAL to the Lord Chancellor to increase the manslaughter sentence imposed on a Vale Royal Borough Council worker has failed.

Bradley David Sandham, an employee of the Winsford-based authority, was jailed for two-and-a-half years after being convicted of killing medical student Daniel Edwards from Nantwich.

But family and friends of the talented student have written letters of protest to Crewe MP Gwyneth Dunwoody, who passed them on to the Lord Chancellor's office, because they did not think the sentence was long enough.

They were outraged by the length of Sandham's jail term when they discovered he would only serve half his sentence in line with the Criminal Justice Act.

The Lord Chancellor's Office has now replied saying the protest has come too late for the Attorney General to consider a review as any application has to be made within 28 days of sentence.

Sandham, 22, an amateur boxer and a joiner at Vale Royal Borough Council's Clough Road depot, knocked out Mr Edwards, 21, with a single punch at a petrol station in Nantwich as he walked home from celebrating his sister's 18th birthday last September.

Edwards fell back and hit his head on the concrete floor. He died 17 days later.

Sandham denied manslaughter at Mold Crown Court in May, claiming that he had acted in self-defence and said he was 'gutted' by what had happened.

A spokesman for the Lord Chancellor's office said this week that the protest had come too late for the Attorney General to consider it and confirmed that Sandham would serve half his sentence.

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