THE sentence of child killer Laura Castle was not 'unduly lenient', the Attorney General's Office has ruled.

Laura Castle was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 18 years for the murder of baby Leiland-James Corkill in Barrow.

Her sentence was referred to the Attorney General’s Office under the Unduly Lenient Sentence, meaning it could be looked at by the Court of Appeal.

But the Attorney General’s Office has chosen not to refer the sentence to that court, ruling that the sentencing judge did not make an error.

It said the criteria for a sentence being unduly lenient was not met.

A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office said: “The Solicitor General was shocked and appalled by this case.

“After careful consideration the Solicitor General has concluded that this case cannot properly be referred to the Court of Appeal.

"A referral under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme to the Court of Appeal can only be made if a sentence is not just lenient but unduly so, such that the sentencing judge made a gross error or imposed a sentence outside the range of sentences reasonably available in the circumstances of the offence.

"The threshold is a high one, and the test was not met in this case.”

Members of the public can ask the attorney general’s office to examine sentences handed down by crown courts in England and Wales within 28 days of sentencing under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme (ULS).

Castle was convicted of murdering Leiland-James less than five months after she and husband Scott Castle, 35, had been granted care of the boy ahead of adopting him.

Preston Crown Court previously heard how Castle told authorities Leiland-James, from Whitehaven, had fallen off the sofa when he was taken to hospital with catastrophic head injuries in January 2021.

Castle rang for an ambulance on the morning of January 6 2021 and reported Leiland-James had fallen off the sofa, injured his head and was struggling to breathe.

However, hospital medics raised concerns that the extent of his injuries did not match her account.

Leiland-James died the following day as Laura Castle maintained to police, as well as family and friends, that the death was a tragic accident while her husband, a night shift worker, was asleep.

She stuck to her story until the day the jury was sworn in for her trial in May at Preston Crown Court when she pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

During the trial she admitted she had shaken the child before he hit his head on the sofa and then the floor.

The former care worker denied intending to kill Leiland-James or seriously harm him – but jurors took just two-and-half hours to convict her of murder.