Newham paedophile killer has sentence doubled

A mum-of-five jailed for three-and-a-half years for fatally stabbing a convicted paedophile has had her sentence more than doubled.

Court of Appeal judges upped the jail term in the case of Sarah Sands, 33, who stabbed Mike Pleasted to death at his home in Drew Road, Silvertown, in November 2014.

Sands was handed a three-and-a-half year sentence for manslaughter in September last year but today had that term increased to seven-and-a-half years.

Before his death, Pleasted had been bailed on charges of sexually assaulting two boys under the age of 18 and was facing allegations of sexually assaulting another boy also under 18. He died before the case got to court.

It emerged during Sands trial last year that Pleasted, 77, had been a prolific paedophile with 24 previous convictions spanning three decades, with the earliest reported case in the 1970s.

During the trial Sands told the jury at the Old Bailey that she had visited Pleasted after drinking heavily to convince him to plead guilty to the sex offences with which he was charged.

She confronted him armed with a knife a hammer and a wrench. Telling the court about the moment she killed Pleasted, Sands said: “He was in front of me. We were staring at each other, I was poking him.

“He was looking dead in my face and he was just standing there and I don’t think either of us realised what had happened.”

She added: “I didn’t want to go there. He had to listen to me.”

Additional reporting by Press Association.