Bid to increase sentence of Bhim Kohli’s teenage killer to be heard next week

A bid to have the sentence of a teenage boy who killed elderly dog walker Bhim Kohli increased is due to be heard at the Court of Appeal on Wednesday.

Mr Kohli, 80, was punched and kicked, slapped in the face with a shoe and racially abused in an attack in Franklin Park, Braunstone Town, near Leicester, on September 1 last year, and died the next day.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years’ custody in June, when he was aged 15.

The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) announced in July that the Solicitor General, Lucy Rigby, had referred the sentence to the Court of Appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme.

Court listings show that the bid to increase the sentence is due to be heard at the Court of Appeal in London on Wednesday, with the boy also seeking to appeal against his sentence at the same hearing.

The boy was convicted of manslaughter, but cleared of murder, following a trial at Leicester Crown Court.

He was convicted alongside a 13-year-old girl, who encouraged the attack by filming parts of it while laughing.

The girl had filmed a series of video clips in which Mr Kohli was hit with the shoe by the balaclava-clad boy and another where the elderly man lay motionless on the ground.

Mr Kohli’s children found him lying on the ground in agony when he told his daughter that he had been called a “P***” during the attack.

The girl, who also cannot be named, was sentenced to a three-year youth rehabilitation order by Mr Justice Turner, but her sentence has not been referred to the Court of Appeal.

After the sentencing, Mr Kohli’s daughter, Susan Kohli, said she was “angry and disappointed” at the sentences, stating that she believed they did not “reflect the severity of the crime they committed”.

Mid Leicestershire MP Peter Bedford and the MP for South Leicestershire, Alberto Costa, also wrote to the AGO asking for the sentences to be reviewed.

A spokesperson for the AGO said last month that Ms Rigby was “appalled by this violent, cowardly attack on an innocent man”.