CONVICTED killer Daniel Agard has been resentenced by a High Court judge.

Justice Gillian Scotland gave Agard a 28-year final sentence on July 30.

The 22 years and eight months he spent in prison for the brutal murders of the members of the Cropper family in 2001 were deducted from his sentence, leaving him with five years and four months.

However, this will be further reduced once the prison authorities calculate his remission, resulting in his being freed sooner.

Agard also received discounts for the breach of his constitutional rights, his prolonged detention on death row, the prison's failure to hold four-year sentence reviews, and his meagre participation in prison programmes.

Agard, 39, was twice convicted for the Cropper murders. He first went to trial in 2004 when he and another man, Lester Pitman, were convicted and sentenced to hang for the murders of Maggie Lee, Lynette Lithgow-Pearson and John Cropper on December 11, 2001.

Agard was the great-nephew of John and the late independent senator Angela Cropper. Lee was his great-grandmother and Pearson his great-aunt. Cropper, who was British, his mother-in-law Maggie Lee and his sister-in-law Lithgow-Pearson were killed at Cropper's home in Mt Anne Drive, Second Avenue, Cascade, between December 11 and 12, 2001.

Their bodies were found on December 13. They had been bound and gagged with electrical wire and their throats slit.

Lithgow-Pearson was a former television broadcaster with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Cropper’s wife Angela, who was not at home at the time of the murders, died in London in November 2016. She was a former independent senator.

Agard successfully appealed his convictions and a retrial was ordered. He was again convicted and three death sentences were again imposed on him on September 13, 2013. He appealed these and lost in July 2019.

He did not appeal further to the Privy Council.

His co-accused, Pitman, successfully challenged his case at appeal and his death sentence was commuted. He was eventually ordered not to be released before he has served a minimum of 40 years in prison.

In 2023, Agard was removed from death row after he filed a constitutional motion. He had been there since September 2013 – a period of nine years, five months and 17 days.

Justice Joan Charles ordered that any attempt to carry out the death sentence would be unconstitutional. She vacated the death sentence and ordered him resentenced by a judge in the Criminal Assizes. Scotland did so on July 30.

She said according to the prison reports and probation officers’ department, Agard expressed regret for the lives lost and those he hurt. He said he was sorry for the part he played in the Cropper family murders and wished he could undo them.

He also promised not to break the law if released. He also said he did not support criminal behaviour and this was his last.

Scotland said during his incarceration, Agard had made little effort to repair the relationship with his family and blamed himself for the strain between hi