European judges have ruled that life can never mean life, as removing the chance of release for even the most dangerous offenders is a breach of human rights.
Murderers Jeremy Bamber, Douglas Vinter and Peter Moore have been told by the European Court of Human Rights that their whole life sentences amount to “inhuman and degrading treatment”.
Whole-lifers should be entitled to a review of their sentence 25 years into their term at the very latest, the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg court said.
The ruling by 17 judges from across Europe sparked further outrage among critics of the court, despite reassurances that the decision did not amount to grounds for imminent release.
Douglas Carswell, a Tory MP who campaigns for Britain to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, said: “A case like this illustrates that there is something profoundly rotten about the way this country is run and we can only make it right by taking power away from these so-called judges.”
The appeal was brought by Vinter, who stabbed his wife in February 2008, and means the cases of Bamber, who killed his parents, sister and her two young children in August 1985, and Peter Moore, who killed four gay men for his sexual gratification in 1995, will also be considered.