The court of appeal has declined to increase the sentence of a man jailed for less than five years after choking a woman to death during sex.
Sam Pybus admitted the manslaughter of Sophie Moss after he applied “prolonged” pressure to her neck at her home in Darlington in the early hours of 7 February.
The 32-year-old told police that Moss would encourage him to strangle her during sex, Teesside crown court heard.
The sentencing judge accepted the married defendant did not intend to kill the 33-year-old and his remorse was genuine, giving him a sentence of four years and eight months in prison.
At the court of appeal on Friday, three judges rejected an attempt by the attorney general, Suella Braverman, to increase Pybus’s sentence.
Lady Justice Macur, sitting with Lady Justice Carr and Mr Justice Murray, said “Bearing all the circumstances of this case in mind, we are not persuaded that the judge was wrong in categorisation, was wrong in the uplift he applied … or was wrong in the element of discount that he gave for mitigation and then for his plea of guilty.”