ACCORDING to national reports, a number of convicted juvenile murderers are about to have their jail tariff cut.

Step forward Lord Chief Justice Woolf, a strangely out-of-touch gentleman, whose judgements are beginning to make Lord Longford seem positively right-wing.

Lord Woolf is due to review many cases involving under-age killers, with sets of various proposals to release them back into the community.

Of even more concern is that these appraisals have been forced on England after the European Court of Human Rights secured the early release of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, child murderers of young James Bulger.

And because of this action we are now faced with the prospect of a whole host of other little monsters freely drifting among us.

The European intervention is a final indicator of how powerless a Home Secretary is to demand a punishment to fit the crime. When challenged by unscrupulous or misguided legal experts, backed by the liberal European court, it further demonstrates that a British Home Secretary's recommendations and those of the trial judges can be totally undermined.

It also shows how the system is now becoming a helper to those who have committed the most horrendous of crimes, rather than a supporter of victims.

Most of these killers have shown little remorse for their actions, while no doubt producing Oscar-winning performances in front of review boards, and pretending that their grubby little lives were purely down to being harshly treated and rejected by society.

Unfortunately, their victims can never again have their say and the families they leave behind will never escape their suffering.

Why should European panjandrums interfere in our justice system, let alone make recommendations on evil murderers who should not be considered for release under any circumstances?

JEAN ALLISON (Mrs)