[Nedusa]

This decision is fair as prior to this only a small proportion of convicted murderers are given a whole life tariff which means NO release ever and more importantly NO hope of release regardless of how reformed or rehabilitated a prisoner becomes.

The decision to impose a whole life tariff is usually only done for crimes that are particularly nasty like child rape/killing or mass killing involving torture etc... These crimes prick the public conscience and usually given the media exposure and public disgust a Judge can and will impose this type of tariff.

The problem with this however is that currently our prison system exists to punish,rehabilitate and reform prisoners where possible, so to impose this "whole life" tariff removes any possibility of rehabilitation or reform and is just Punishment pure and simple. The arguement in this case is that ALL prisoners should have in theory the same possibility of reform and rehab even though clearly some prisoners like Ian Brady eg will NEVER be released.

So I think this decision changes nothing other than to give in theory some possibility to our worst offenders even though in practice they will never be released....!!!!