PATRICK HILL: 'I saw Nicholas Prosper in court - killer teen remains an enigma'

Thousands of words have been written about Nicholas Prosper since he murdered his own mum and two of his siblings before preparing to carry out what would have been Britain's deadliest ever mass school shooting.

I sat just yards from him during his two-day sentencingat Luton Crown Court in March and paid close attention to him again for more than two hours this morning as he watched the latest proceedings against him via a video-link from jail. However, despite plenty of evidence being made public during all three hearings about his offences andhis mindset at the time of the killings, the teenager remains an enigma.

Prosper was today seen sitting on the middle one of three red chairs in a small blue-coloured room inside HMP Belmarsh, where a prison guard stayed behind him next to a door.

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The setting was a world away from the grandeur of Court Four at the Royal Courts of Justice, just 12 miles away by road, where three judges decided his fate surrounded by wood-panelled walls, modern chandeliers and leather-bound books.

But what was just as noticeable was that Prosper, who was wearing a grey prison-issue t-shirt and trousers, seemed to be on another planet from everything going on around him. He raised his hand at the beginning of the hearing after being asked to do so in order to show he could hear what was being said inside the courtroom.

But for much of the hearing, he could be seen looking bored with his head resting on his hands and knees as if he was trying to sleep. At other times he took off his thick-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes, as if he appeared tired, while occasionally glancing down at a piece of paper, which he appeared to be reading on a chair next to him. And at one point he seemed to be writing or doodling on a piece of paper.

During a 45-minute break, during which the judges considered their verdict, he was seen pacing around the room, which was barely wide enough for three chairs, before returning to sitting sideways on his seat.

He briefly attempted to entertain himself by repeatedly throwing a silver pen up in the air before catching it and he did get up on his feet when two security guards entered the room to hand him a small plate of food and a drink.

However, there was no sign the troubled teenager, who did not utter a single word in more than two hours, was actually listening to or following what was being said.

Prosper did not show any emotion at any time, including when chilling details of his crimes were read out about how he murdered his mum Juliana, 48, his brother Kyle, 16, and his sister Giselle, 13, or at the end when he was told the Crown had lost their case to have his sentence increased to a whole-life order.

Make no mistake, Prosper is not stupid. A prison doctor has judged him to be of "normal or above average intelligence" and ruled that although he has autism, it did not impair his ability to understand his own conduct.

However, tragically for his loved ones, it appears he simply does not care about what he has done. Indeed, he has never shown any regret for his murders and has in fact boasted inside jail that he wishes he had killed more people and completed the biggest massacre of the 21st Century.

The judges - Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Wall - were today left in a difficult position and made their decision based on law and precedent. But it is hard to argue morally against such a person, regardless of their age, being handed a whole-life term.

Shadow Justice Minister Dr Kieran Mullan MP, who had referred Prosper's sentence to the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme, summed the situation up well after the hearing ended. He said: “Respect for our legal system doesn’t mean you can’t disagree with it. I don’t think Nicholas Prosper should ever get out of prison considering his horrific crimes.

"But I accept that under our current approach to sentencing, that the Court of Appeal could legitimately reject my appeal because the threshold for a whole life order is simply too high at the moment. This ruling strengthens the argument that we need to reform our sentencing framework and laws to ensure that the very worst offenders spend longer in prison."

Among everything about this case that makes such little sense, Mullan's comments were at last something about Prosper's case that are easy to understand.