The killer of shop worker Mahesh Wickramasingha has launched an appeal against his manslaughter sentence.

Sam Harrison was sentenced to ten years in a juvenile detention centre for the manslaughter of Mahesha during a botched robbery in which the shop worker was stabbed in the jugular. The incident took place last November in Stanley News in Huyton, Merseyside. Harrison has appealed on the grounds that the sentence was excessive and that an eight-year prison sentence would be more appropriate. If the court finds in his favour, Harrison could be released in as little as three years.

The owner of Stanley News said the appeal was the “ultimate insult”. “It is like he sticking his fingers up at all of us who have suffered,” said Gunapala Welhengama “He did not give Mahesh any rights to live. He left two children without a dad and a young wife without her husband.”

Meanwhile, a gang of youths, also based in Merseyside, have appealed against their sentences. The five members of the gang who held up several stores at gunpoint, and the non fatal shooting of a shop-worker, believe their sentences were too harsh considering their ages. The gang, aged between 13 and 18 at the time of the incidents, had been given varying sentences of four, five, six and nine years.

Decisions on both appeal cases are expected later this month.