Britain’s top lawyer has been left “deeply troubled” by a series of Crown Prosecution Service blunders in the aftermath of a Canterbury double murder trial.

Attorney General Jeremy Wright QC wrote of his concerns following complaints by the family of Natasha Sadler, who was knifed to death with friend Simon Gorecki in Dickens Avenue last year.

Mechanic Foster Christian was convicted of the murders and jailed for life following the trial at Maidstone Crown Court in October.

But the Sadler family maintain that the sentences given to two women who helped Christian conceal the murder weapon were unduly lenient.

They hoped to appeal the jail terms handed to Naomi Toro and Samantha Groombridge, but the CPS failed to tell them of a strict 28-day limit to refer the case for review to the Attorney General themselves.

Now, a chief crown prosecutor has:

• Given a dressing down to a leading case worker over his handling of the family’s complaints.
• Ruled the judge should have been told that Groombridge laughed about the murders on Facebook.
• Apologised to the family for the sub-standard service of the CPS.

The grievances were sparked after the CPS decided the one-year sentence handed to Toro and the 10-week youth custody term given to Groombridge were not too lenient, choosing not to refer the case to the Office of the Attorney General.

But it did not inform Natasha’s family that a strict 28-day time limit exists in which to refer the case themselves. By the time the family had written to the Attorney General it was too late.

Natasha’s sister Jodie, who lives in Sheffield, complained to her former MP John Healey, who wrote to Mr Wright.

Mr Wright responded: “I can only apologise for the poor service that your constituents received. I am deeply troubled by what has happened in this case, and I have raised my concerns with the CPS.”

This week Jodie, 37, told KentOnline's sister paper the Kentish Gazette that the Sadler family remain unhappy with the CPS.

“It sounded at first like the CPS were going to ask for the review and by the time they told us they weren’t, it was already too late. That disgusted us,” she said.

“We do not think that either Naomi Toro or Samantha Groombridge were properly sentenced because the court wasn’t given the full information about them.”

Toro, of Keyworth Mews, had been called to Dickens Avenue by Christian on March 29 last year. He wanted her to retrieve the knife he had used to stab Simon and Natasha, and Natasha’s son Connaugh, 20, plus a 16-year-old boy.

She took the knife away and gave it to Groombridge, who kept it at her home in Athelstan Road, Thanington. Later that night, Toro went to Groombridge’s house to collect the knife and later threw it in the River Stour at Fordwich.

Shortly after the murders, Groombridge posted a KentOnline story about the huge police presence in Dickens Avenue on her Facebook page.

When one friend commented “hope everyone’s OK”, Groombridge responded: “There not gunna be OK, they’ve been stabbed lol.”

Lol is an acronym for laugh out loud.

South-east chief Crown prosecutor Jaswant Narwal says the judge should have been told of the post, as well as more details of Toro’s domestic situation, but said it was unlikely to have had a bearing on sentencing.

But she did admit the level of service provided to the Sadler family had “not been of the required standard”, blaming “poor communication on behalf of both the police and the CPS” for the family not being informed of the 28-day limit.

She also upheld the family’s complaint about the behaviour of the head of the south-east complex case unit, Nigel Pilkington.

The family claim he was unprofessional and did not take their concerns seriously when they met in January.

Mrs Narwal said: “There are aspects of the way the meeting was held which are not of the standard I would expect from any prosecutor and this has been addressed by myself as his line manager through our performance procedures.”

The Sadler family accept now that they will not be able to force a review of the pair’s sentences, but are calling for a judicial review into the whole matter.

Jodie added: “We need to get the permission for the judicial review first.

“We know we can’t get Groombridge and Toro re-sentenced, but if we can help other families avoid the situation that we’ve been through then that will be our aim.”