An appeal to have the sentence of “pure evil” killer childminder Karen Foster extended has failed.
An application was made to the Attorney General’s Office under the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme requesting the sentence of Foster be examined.
Foster, 62, was jailed for 12 years and seven months in June after pleading guilty to manslaughter on the third day of her trial.
She caused fatal injuries to nine-month-old baby boy Harlow Collinge by shaking him in Hapton on March 1, 2022, after becoming frustrated at his crying.
The childminder, of Walsden Grove, Burnley, caused catastrophic brain injuries to baby Harlow by shaking him, and he died in hospital four days after the incident.
She was labelled “pure evil” by Harlow’s parents after showing no remorse for her actions, with mother Gemma Collinge calling Foster a “monster” and a “disgrace to society”.
Following her sentencing, one or more members of the public applied to the Attorney General’s Office asking it to consider Foster’s conviction under the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme.
The scheme allows the public to ask the Attorney General to examine sentences for certain crimes which, if they are adjudged to potentially be ‘unduly lenient’, can be referred to the Court of Appeal.
At the Court of Appeal – the highest court in the land – a panel of judges will then either decide the sentence is just and keep it the same, adjudge a sentence to be unduly lenient and increase it, or may refuse to hear the case entirely.
While an application was made to the Attorney General’s Office in the case of Foster, it was decided that the case would not be referred to the Court of Appeal, meaning after review it concluded the sentence Foster received was not too low.
On the day Harlow was fatally injured, Foster was childminding two other children, aged four and two, a breach of Ofsted rules, something sentencing judge Mr Justice Barry Cotter KC showed she “prioritised money over children’s welfare”.
After being dropped off in good spirits by Ms Collinge, Foster took Harlow to Towneley Park before returning to her address in Hapton, where within half an hour she was calling 999.
Paramedics found Harlow on a bed purple, without a pulse and with fixed pupils, with Foster lying that he had collapsed while eating his dinner.
She maintained the lies for more than two years before, on the morning her trial was due to begin, admitting manslaughter.
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