Emily Jones: Bolton child's killer loses appeal against sentence

Emily Jones was playing in Queen's Park, Bolton, when she was stabbed to death

A woman who slit the throat of a seven-year-old girl as she played in a park has lost an appeal against her sentence.

Emily Jones was killed in Queen's Park, Bolton, on 22 March 2020.

Eltiona Skana, 31, who has paranoid schizophrenia, was sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to serve a minimum of 10 years and eight months.

She challenged both the sentence and the minimum term but Court of Appeal judges rejected her appeal.

Skana admitted the manslaughter of Emily on the grounds of diminished responsibility. She had been put on trial for murder, which she was cleared of.

Her lawyers argued she should instead have been given a hospital order with restrictions, and said her minimum term was too long.

But her appeal was rejected by three senior judges.

'Significant responsibility'

Skana attended the hearing via video-link from high-security Rampton Hospital where she is a patient.

Passing sentence at Minshull Street Crown Court in December 2020, judge Mr Justice Wall ordered Skana to serve her sentence at Rampton Hospital, only to be released if she no longer posed a risk to the public.

He said that despite her mental illness she retained "a significant amount of responsibility".

Eltiona Skana's lawyers argued she should have been given a hospital order with restrictions

The judge said it merited not only a hospital order but a "hybrid" order, meaning the defendant would go to prison for the remainder of her eight-year sentence if her condition improved sufficiently.

Dismissing her appeal, Lady Justice Macur said the Crown Court judge was entitled to reach the conclusions he did on both the nature of the sentence and the minimum term.

She said the case involved a difficult sentencing exercise for the judge, as well as difficulties for the lawyers involved.

Emily was at the park with her father Mark Jones, then 49, and was on her scooter when she passed Skana, alone on a bench armed with a knife bought earlier that day.

Skana stood up and slit Emily's throat before running away.

The Albanian national, who first came to the UK in 2014 after claiming asylum, had a long history of mental illness and had not been taking her anti-psychotic medication.

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