Grief renewed by killer appeal
Jul 1 2008 by Paul Loraine, The Journal
THE teenager who killed 18-year-old mother Samantha Madgin is trying to have her jail term cut.
Jordan Jobson, 15, has been granted leave by judges to appeal against the 15-year sentence she was given for stabbing Samantha to death with a kitchen knife last year.
Jobson, of Holywell Avenue in Walker, Newcastle, had also tried to overturn her murder conviction but that attempt was rejected.
Yesterday Samantha’s parents Alison and Stan spoke of their disgust.
The couple look after the Wallsend teenager’s year-old son Callum, helping his dad Stephen McKenzie, 26.
Alison, 42, said: “I feel physically sick to have heard this news. What an insult.
“She is supposed to show remorse, but she can’t even take the sentence she has got for taking our Samantha’s life.
“Any decent person who was genuinely remorseful and accepted what they had done was wrong would just take the sentence and let us get on with our lives.
“I have tried to move on with my life, but it all keeps getting dragged up again and again. Going through the court case was like doing the funeral all over again and now it will be the same again when this goes to court. I just hope we will get the chance to tell the court what this has done to all our lives.”
Samantha bled to death after she was stabbed in the chest, arms and face during a confrontation in the back lane between Victoria Avenue and Albert Avenue, Wallsend, just before midnight on August 2.
The new mum had been trying to act as a peacemaker when her friends got into an argument with friends of Jobson.
But high on cocaine and drunk on vodka, the schoolgirl stabbed Samantha 10 times as she tried to walk away. One blow cut a major artery near her heart and paramedics, who arrived in minutes, could not save her. Jobson admitted manslaughter but denied murder, saying she had not meant to harm Samantha and picked up the knife to protect herself.
But she was jailed for 15 years, three years more than the starting point for juvenile killers, after the judge ruled there had been “significant premeditation”.
Now, solicitors at Newcastle firm Crowe Humble Wesencraft have been told Jobson will be given a court date to appeal against her sentence.
They had also appealed against conviction on the grounds they should have been able to refer to the bad character of a prosecution witness during the trial, but that was turned down. The firm did not want to issue a comment at this stage.
The Court of Appeal confirmed leave to appeal sentence had been granted, but a date has yet to be set.
Alison, of High View, Wallsend, said: “She did an adult crime and was dealt with in an adult court and she should take the punishment she got. Even with 15 years, she will still get out and have a life, but she is a complete danger to society because if it hadn’t been Samantha, it could’ve been someone else.”
