March 24, 2025

R -v- Warren Spence

Criminal Crown Court Sentencing Remarks

Case number: 13XC0002324

In the Crown Court at Leeds

24 March 2025

Before:

Mr Justice Cotter

Between:

-v-

Warren Spence

Sentencing remarks

Warren Spence you may remain seated until I tell you to stand.
You have been found guilty of the murder of your partner Samantha Varley. On 8th February 2024 you brutally attacked her in what was her home, just as you had seriously attacked her and other partners before. You are a very violent, manipulative and controlling man who has been a danger to women for many years.

Brief facts

Samantha Varley was 44 years old and had a troubled life. She first tried heroin at the age of 14 and continued to take class A drugs on and off throughout her life. She had committed criminal offences of the typical type linked to feeding her addition.
However, she was as entitled to a life not subject to violence as any other person. She was a happy, friendly, kind and light hearted soul, and despite her issues was very much loved by her family members as explained by Tracey Varley and Peter Varley in their moving impact statements, and in evidence by her cousins Tina Frazer and Melanie Boyce. The number of family members who have attended this hearing is a testament to how loved she was by her wider family.
She was also a longstanding friend to others and popular and respected by the group who met next to Corals betting shop in Harehills.
Her death has had a devastating impact on the family all the more so as they have heard what you did to her. They will always live with the pain caused by her loss; that is their life sentence.
In the late summer or autumn of 2023, you began a relationship with Samatha Varley. It was to last six months before you killed her. At the beginning she described it as a bit of fun and told people that she liked you. However, her feelings quickly changed as she became frightened of you; justifiably so. The relationship was marred by your violence to her, threats to her and her children, insults and controlling and manipulative behaviour.
She explained to Tina Fraser how you would grab her by the throat if she left for 10 minutes and you did not know where she was, you hit her and headbutted her (as you had done to others). You blacked her eyes, strangled her and would drag her around by her hair. Tina Fraser saw the bruising you caused to her ribs. Samantha Varley explained that you had held a knife to her throat and at one stage she and had barricaded herself behind a door. Much of this was an established pattern of behaviour for you as seen in previous assaults of other female partners.
The tragic reality is that given her addiction she did not have the ability to escape from you, not that this would be easy as your past convictions prove. She was frightened for the safety others given your threats to harm her family (Tina Frazer and her children) and her addiction drew her back to places where you were waiting.
She disclosed to Ms Nagarathan who worked for a support charity that you were violent and abusive and she wanted a referral for her with her addictions. She was homeless and seemed genuinely desperate whilst when Ms Nagarathan saw you, you were arguing and threatening a woman outside. In a later contact Ms Varley told Nagarathan that you had threatened to kill her and she took that threat seriously; you had attended at the address she was staying at, smashed a window and taken a knife to her.
In the incident in the street on just before Christmas 2023 you humiliated her in the street and frightened her so much, she wet herself.
The court also saw the video of 31st December taken from a body worn camera. Samantha Varley was seen saying that she had been frightened for life; scared and terrified. You had just flipped and nutted her she showed the officer the injury. She said that she had asked for help, had used Claire’s law; but she was still there. She said that she was worried she might get killed; that you were going to end up killing her.
Paul Watkinson had been a friend of Samantha Varley for 25-30 years. On 15th January he met her and she had a black eye and a cut above her other eye and told him that you had knacked her; beat her up.
He took her to his house as a safe place and she stayed about 8 or 9 days and she did not go out of save for once or twice. He saw you outside the Chemist and you were asking if he had seen her and he said no. I have no doubt you were there waiting for her as you knew she have to pick up a prescription.
Samantha Varley told Mr Watkinson that she was terrified of you and that you beat her up and he saw her terrified for the first time ever. She said that you would punch her face, choke her out, threaten her children and torment her. She showed him messages threatening and racist messages form you about her children. Tellingly he said that he felt sorry for her as she was not that sort of person and he did not like to see her vulnerable. She tried to explain to those who helped with her prescription that she was fleeing violence but they said she had to go and get it and you were waiting. Her poignant message to Mr Watkinson was “don’t text back, he caught me luv, got a battering”.
6th February Samantha Varley attended at the Compton Help Centre and told staff that she was seeking refuge from your domestic violence and needed numbers. She said that she would make something up to you about why she was there; indeed when she first came in she asked me for help to obtain a food voucher and then asked if she could have a quiet word. You arrived. The idea it was a joint plan to get rehousing based on your record of serious domestic violence with you attending at the centre to support her in this claim is obviously ridiculous.
As the 7th February you were both living at a friend’s flat at 14A Brownhills terrace. In the early hours of 8th February you were seen together on CCTV. At 4.30 am you send a message about sex when you get home; proving that you still viewed it as you home contrary to what you told the jury. At 6.37am you were both seen on CCTV on Brownhills Terrace walking in the direction of 14A. This was the last time Samantha Varley was seen alive and her phone makes no calls after this time.
You were captured on CCTV alone at 7.54 outside the property. You never returned to it and went to stay with Luke O’Connor claiming that Samantha Varley had kicked you out and you were homeless. The truth is that sometime after you got back to 14A after 6.37am on 8th February you murdered her.
You stayed with Luke O’Connor until you were told by a friend by text that Samantha Varley’s body had been discovered and you left for Scarborough where you were arrested after giving false details.
Samatha Varley was found face down on the bed in the flat on 12tH February. She had been dead since 8th February.
Dr Johnson the pathologist noted 85 areas of potential injury. There were areas of bruising and swelling to right side of head caused by blunt force. There was bruising and extensive haemorrhaging to the back of skull and a large collection of blood to the front. These injuries required extreme force. She had a bald patch where her hair had been pulled out and this could have caused some of the haemorrhaging. She had two black eyes, injuries to the nose, a laceration to lip, marks to neck, multiple areas of bruising and abrasions to the arms, shoulders, hips and legs. You also caused a left transverse fracture of a spinal process which occurred when she was alive and would have made movement painful. There were injuries to her back and leg consistent with blows caused by the hammer found in the bedroom. She had three very nasty bite marks to the forearm, shin and hand, which would have been excruciatingly painful. Your criminal record shows that you can behave like an animal and bite when you lose your temper. However, truly shocking these injuries were having been caused by a prolonged and vicious attack, they were not the fatal ones. Rather, the cause of her death was the 25 complete rib fractures you inflicted to the left and side sides, including with flail segments, associated with breaches of the pleura and five rib ends puncturing her lungs.
To cause such horrific chest injuries needed severe chest compression. It was Dr Johnson’s view that such a force could have been generated by stamping on her chest; with more than one stamp required and I have no doubt that is what you did. You stamped on her chest repeatedly.
Having so brutally assaulted Samantha Varley, you left her on the bed face down. In so doing you made a mistake in that your phone was underneath her.
Toxicology showed that Samantha Varley’s blood revealed that she had taken heroin, cocaine and alcohol. The levels were highly toxic but many habitual drug users could tolerate these levels. They would have affected her movements and her ability to defend herself and as Mr Hill submitted and are likely to have numbed the pain to a degree. However, it was your assault which was the central factor in her death. She knew during the sustained assault she was being savagely beaten by a man who, to use her phrase, had flipped and she well knew you were capable, as proved to be the case, of killing her. She suffered significantly prior to her death.
As for expected period she could have survived Dr Johnson said that it would have been very difficult to breathe so it was a short period of time . Professor Mangham said she would have died within an hour. You summoned no help.

Schedule 21

For the grave offence of murder there is only one sentence prescribed by law that is imprisonment for life. That is the sentence I shall impose upon you in due course. However, I am required to determine the minimum period you should serve in prison before you are eligible to be considered for release on parole.
It is most important that you and everyone concerned with this case should understand what the minimum term means. The minimum term is not a fixed term after which you will be automatically released but the minimum time that you will spend in custody before your case can be considered by the parole board. It will be for the parole board to say at that time whether or not you will be released. If and when you are released, you will still be subject to licence, and this will be the case the rest of your life. If for any reason your licence were to be revoked, you would be recalled to prison to serve your life sentence in custody.
In coming to the appropriate minimum term, I must first decide where this case falls within schedule 2.

Starting point

Here the starting point is 15 years.
As I have stated this was a brutal, sustained attack when you lost all self control, it included biting like an animal and the use of a hammer. I have carefully considered the evidence, the savage nature of the assault and extensive range of injuries and also as Mr Hill submitted that, you were under the influence of drink and/or drugs and have concluded by a narrow margin that, it cannot be said with the necessary certainty that your attack involved sadistic conduct for the purposes of the schedule. If I had been satisfied that it was the starting point would have been 30 years.
However the starting point is just that and I must weigh up the relevant aggravating and mitigating factors.

Aggravating factors

There are four obvious aggravating factors.
Firstly your prior, and persistent, domestic abuse of Samantha Varley over six months through violence, threats, and controlling behaviour. Such was the violence she was able to predict her own death at your hands.
Domestic abuse offences of all forms are rightly regarded as particularly serious within the criminal justice system because they represent a violation of the trust and security that normally exists between people in an intimate relationship. Samantha Varley was in what was her own home with her partner when she died at the hands of that partner.
Secondly, the vicious, gratuitous and sustained nature of the assault and the mental and physical suffering inflicted on Samantah Varley before her death. She knew she was beaten by a man who had lost control; punched, kicked, pulled by the hair, bitten and hit with a hammer before you repeatedly stamped on her chest. After that she will have survived for a limited period; but her death was not immediate. She would have struggled to breathe given the terrible damage to her lungs.
Thirdly, I have doubt that you were under the influence of drink and/or drugs. You freely admitted to being drunk for days and seeking out drugs. Of course I cannot determine exactly what you had taken; but I am certain that you were the influence of one or the other or both.
Fourthly your previous convictions. You have a record dating back to 1986 with 29 convictions for 57 offences with your first offence of assault in 1987 at age of 18. Thereafter, offences of assault in 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, affray in 1996, and a further assault offence in 2006.
The most relevant and aggravating aspect of your previous convictions is that they evidence your persistent violent and controlling behaviour towards female partners and their families. Court sentences including programme requirements had little if any effect on you. It is no understatement that you have three former partners; who I shall refer to as L, M and B, who may now consider themselves fortunate to have escaped alive from a relationship with you.
Samantha Varley made a disclosure request under a ‘Claire’s Law’ which had resulted in her finding out that you had a history spanning over 20 years of violence towards female partners. Her wholly unsurprising words were, “It felt like I was reading about myself”.
The jury heard the detail of the offence against these three former partners. You tried to minimise the details provided by the Prosecution; but the guilty pleas, photographs, messages and overview establish your propensity to act as you were to do towards Samantha Varley.
Three convictions relate to your partner L

(a) Common assault in 2007; you punched her to the head and kicked her to the stomach and chest area.

(b) Threats to kill in 2019.

(c) Assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 2010. You punched her to the head causing bruising and later you hit her with a television aerial and punched her several times to the head and hit her with your elbow. You received an 18 month sentence for this assault with 12 months for affray; so 30 months.

Partner M

(d)Two offences of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in December 2012. You punched her, dragged her around the room by her hair and punched her on a later occasion. The jury were shown photographs of M with a black eye and an injuries to her nose and both sides of her face.

(e) Assault occasioning actual bodily harm in September 2013 this related to a sustained assault upon M that lasted several hours. During the course of the assault, you punched her to the head, kicked her leg and strangled her. You told her you would kill her if she tried to leave. You bit her on the forearm as you were to bite Samatha Varley. The jury were shown photographs of M with two black eyes (left one closed) bruising to left side of face and a photograph of a bite on forearm. You received a sentence of 30 months.

Partner B

(f) Threatening or abusive words or behaviour in 2018. You had threatened to kill her.

(g) Sending an offensive or menacing messaged in 2019. you attended at her work, visited the homes of her friends to try and find her and left hundreds of voicemails some containing threats of violence including that you would pour petrol through her letterbox before setting the house on fire with her in it. Your messages reveal your attitude to women generally.
“Fucking slags leave us with nowt; prison here I come”. And “looks like I have to go and kick off init”.

“…going to kick off big style people going to get proper hurt and they will be lucky if they don’t die”.

A response to her sister.” Wind me up all you want it will be her that pays for it”.

(h) Racially aggravated harassment, assault and breach of a restraining order in 2019. Just as with Samantha Varley you made threats to hurt her family using vile racist language with the same terms. You’re your arrest, you assaulted a police officer by headbutting him; the pictures showing the nasty injuries. You threatened to bite and assault officers when they arrived at the police station and even when placed in leg restraints but damaged them by biting them. This shows the behaviour you can descend to if you lose your temper.

(i) Harassment and breach of a restraining order, convictions in 2020.

I make it clear that I do not sentence on the basis that you sought to conceal Samantha Varley’s body under a quilt on the bed as Mr Wood KC submitted. I doubt much thought went onto it.
Given your evidence and the different circumstances of the incident I also do not view the fact that you had been released by the police under investigation at the time of offence as a significant aggravating factor.

Mitigating factors

I have carefully considered all the evidence and I am satisfied that when you were repeatedly stamping on Samantha Varley’s chest with force to cause 25 complete rib fracture it was your intention to kill her; just as you had threatened to do so to her and others. During the attack you had no thoughts beyond that.
I accept that there was a lack of premeditation. When you went back to the flat you did not intend to kill her; probably even to assault her. However as Samantha Varley described that can change in an instant you could flip and became very violent. This is what happened and she stood no chance. I shall not speculate what caused you to lose your temper so badly; only you know
You have shown no remorse.
Any proper balancing of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances requires a substantial uplift from the starting point; anything other than that would be wholly wrong.

Credit for time on remand

Credit must be given for time on remand.
You will have spent 401 days in custody for this offence.

Associated matters

I direct that if the surcharge applies in this case in respect of any of you it should be drawn up in the appropriate amount.
A transcript of these sentencing remarks be attached to your file for the benefit of the Parole Board. I make this clear at this moment in time it is my judgment that you will remain a risk to women in so long as you are physically able to be violent to anyone. However what Mr Hill KC has said about your progress in prison does provide some hope.
Compensation is not appropriate.
I wish to praise those who have their own demons and had the courage to overcome their dislike or fear of the police and courts to come here and face questioning to secure justice for Samatha Varley. It was an obviously very difficult experience for Tina Frazer, Paul Watkinson and Luke’ O’Connor; but they did what was right and should be an example for others witnessing crime. On behalf of Samantha and the wider family I thank them.

Sentence

Stand up please.
Warren Spence for the murder of Samantha Varley, I sentence you to life imprisonment. You will serve a minimum term of 24 years less the 401 days you have served on remand.
Take him down.
Within the investigation into Samatha Varley’s death the Police treated rightly treated her as the equal of, and as deserving of the very considerable effort to achieve justice, as anyone else. They have had to gain the trust of some who are likely to have been wary of the police and have had to work exceptionally hard to piece together the evidence, including, vitally, hundreds of hours of CCTV. The investigation was of the very highest quality and the public and Samantha Varley and this Court have been very well served by it. Such work rightly deserves public recognition. I wish to praise the work of;

• DCI James Entwistle
• DI Tom Hilyer
• DS Joe Aspinall
• DC Ian Green
• DC Sarah Banks
• Jo Hazell
• DC Sara James
• DC Tyra Rahim
• Laura Brennan