Sentence increased for Chichester father who killed baby son

Leo Banks died more than two years after being shaken at four weeks old

A father jailed for manslaughter after fatally shaking his four-week-old son has had his sentence increased at the Court of Appeal.

Leo Banks suffered a brain injury at the hands of Matthew Banks in 2017 and died more than two years later.

Banks, previously of Chichester, West Sussex, was jailed for three years and eight months in October 2022.

On Thursday, judges at the Court of Appeal in London increased Banks' sentence to five years and four months.

The increase was made after his sentence was referred to the court under the unduly lenient sentence scheme by the Solicitor General, who claimed his prison term was too low.

Tom Little KC, for the Solicitor General, told the hearing: "A forceful shaking of a four-week-old baby involves an unlawful act which carried a high risk of really serious harm which ought to have been obvious to the offender.

"That is a conclusion that the judge should have been driven to by those facts."

'Aggravating features'

The court was told Banks had shaken Leo during the night while the boy's mother slept, later claiming the baby had been crying "hysterically".

Mr Little said the relationship between Banks and Leo should be taken into account as aggravating his crime.

"The aggravating features here outweigh the mitigating features rather than the converse," the barrister said.

"The fact that it was the father should count," he concluded.

Leo's mother, Hannah Hawdon, found her son seriously ill.

Tests and a MRI scan found he had suffered a "large volume subdural haemorrhage and a brain laceration".

Leo was stabilised and released from hospital, and continued to receive treatment for the head injury and related serious illness until his death in February 2020.

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