A teenage boy who killed elderly dog walker Bhim Kohli is set to have his sentence reviewed 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.
Lawyers for the teenager will also make a bid to have the sentence reduced at the same hearing.
Following a six-week trial at Leicester Crown Court, the boy was convicted of manslaughter but cleared of murder.
A 13-year-old girl, who also cannot be named, was convicted alongside him.
She encouraged the attack by filming parts of it while laughing, with video clips showing the balaclava-clad boy hitting Mr Kohli with a shoe.
The girl 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.
Mr Kohli’s children found him lying on the ground in agony, when he told his daughter that he had been called a “Paki” during the attack, the court heard in the trial.
Jurors also heard the boy say in his evidence that he had a “tussle” with Mr Kohli over his slider shoe before he slapped the elderly man with it out of “instinct”, which caused the pensioner to fall to his knees, but that he denied kicking or punching him.
In a letter written by the boy to a woman who had worked with him at the residential unit where he was being looked after, he wrote: “I f****** hate what I did. I regret it so much.
“I have flashbacks of that day and it just upsets me. I kinda just needed anger etc releasing.”
Mid Leicestershire MP Peter Bedford and the MP for South Leicestershire, Alberto Costa, wrote to the AGO in June 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”.
