On 28 November 2012 at 9.15 a.m: Grand Chamber hearing in the
case Vinter and Others v. the United Kingdom (nos. 66069/09,
130/10 and 3896/10)
The applicants, Douglas Gary Vinter, Jeremy Neville Bamber and Peter Howard Moore,
are British nationals who were born in 1969, 1961 and 1946 respectively. All three men
are currently serving sentences of life imprisonment for murder
Mr Vinter was convicted of stabbing his wife in February 2008, having already been
convicted of murdering a work colleague in 1996. Mr Bamber was convicted of shooting
and killing his adoptive parents, sister and her two young children in August 1985.
Mr Moore was convicted of stabbing four men with a large combat knife between
September and December 1995. When convicted the applicants were given whole life
orders, meaning they cannot be released other than at the discretion of the Secretary of
State on compassionate grounds (for example, if they are terminally ill or seriously
incapacitated).
Relying in particular on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the
European Convention on Human Rights, all three applicants complain that their
imprisonment without hope of release is cruel and amounts to inhuman and degrading
treatment.
The applications were lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 11 December
2009, 17 December 2009 and 6 January 2010, respectively. In its judgment of 17
January 2012, the Court held, by four votes to three, that there had been no violation of
Article 3 of the Convention. The case (covering all three joined applications) was referred
to the Grand Chamber at the request of all three applicants.
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/fra/pages/search.aspx?i=001-108610#
