HUSBANDS who kill their wives in a fit of jealous rage will face tougher jail terms under new sentencing guidelines to be issued by the Lord Chief Justice today, The Times has learnt.

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Britain’s most senior judge, is to publish guidance for judges that could see average jail terms double or even treble, from less than five years in many cases to 12 years or more.

The move acknowledges that there is concern that men who kill their wives in a moment of anger are escaping with lenient sentences by pleading manslaughter on the ground that they were provoked. They then avoid the mandatory life sentence for murder with its minimum starting point of 15 years.

In contrast, women who suffer abuse at the hands of their husbands over a long period of time before being finally driven to kill can find it harder to plead manslaughter by reason of provocation.

Women are also treated more harshly if, for instance, they seize a kitchen knife to kill their husbands, while men may use brute force, without the use of a weapon.

A second concern is that courts are more lenient with domestic murders than non-domestic ones. Men who kill wives in a fit of jealousy and then plead manslaughter by reason of provocation receive shorter jail terms than killers who argue the defence in a non-domestic context.

Lord Phillips, with the backing of Ken Macdonald, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, today will set out three new categories of killing based on the degree of provocation and factors such as whether children were present or a body was dismembered or mutilated.

For the most serious killings, the new recommended minimum jail term is 12 years, where there was low provocation over a short period of time. At the other end of the spectrum, if there was a very high degree of provocation over a prolonged period — such as in the case of a battered woman — any jail term would not normally be for less than three years.

The guidelines are being issued by the Sentencing Guidelines Council, the new independent body chaired by Lord Phillips which was set up to formalise sentencing policy. It draws on a report from its advisers, the Sentencing Advisory Panel, which looked at appeals over 13 years as well as jail terms imposed in the past three years and found “a tendency for domestic cases to receive a lower sentence than non-domestic cases.”

Among the domestic violence cases, most offenders were jailed for five years or less, while those convicted of manslaughter in a non-domestic context had sentences mostly starting at five years. In its report in March last year the advisory panel — judges, lawyers, magistrates, academics and lay people — noted that women who are forced to kill after provocation over a long period may not be treated the same as men who kill on impulse.

Where the provocation is cumulative and “battered woman syndrome” is found to exist, the required loss of self-control may not be as sudden, as sufferers display a slow-burn reaction and an outwardly calm appearance, it says.

“It is in this respect that commentators have highlighted the apparent sexual bias of the provocation defence which favours men who kill in anger rather than women who kill out of fear,” the report says.

The guidelines are likely to suggest that the use of a weapon should not, of itself, be a factor that moves the case into a higher sentencing bracket. The key issue would be whether the weapon was to hand, or carried deliberately to the scene.

Research shows that “whereas men can and do kill using physical strength alone, women often cannot, and use a weapon”. The kitchen knife is often the weapon used, the report says.

The defects in the law on provocation were highlighted in a series of cases, including that of Emma Humphreys, who was 17 when jailed for the murder of Trevor Armitage. She spent ten years in prison and in 1995 was released after the Court of Appeal substituted a verdict of manslaughter.

• Muggers could serve less time in jail under draft new sentencing guidelines. The change will mean that the typical mugger, who on average is jailed for just over three years, will have more than six months knocked off the sentence.

  Unequal Justice

• Joseph McGrail was given a two-year suspended sentence in 1991 after kicking his alcoholic wife to death. The judge said his “nagging” wife would have tried the patience of a saint
• Sara Thornton was jailed for life in 1990 for the murder of her alcoholic husband. The judge said she could have walked out of her 10-month abusive marriage at any time
• Leslie Humes, of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, stabbed his wife Madeleine after she told him she did not love him. He was jailed for seven years
• Josephine Smith was released in 2002 after serving nine years for murdering her husband, Brian. She shot him while he slept after he forced her to re-enact sadomasochistic pornographic videos

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