Georgia Williams's mother attacks top judge's call to end mandatory life sentences for murder

Lord Woolf said life prison terms were handed down "too frequently" by the courts, and judges should be able to be "more precise" in the way they passed sentences.

A long-standing supporter of penal reform.

Lord Woolf says the period murderers were now spending in prison has grown very substantially over the last 20 years.

He said: "I think it is unfortunate that we give life sentences so frequently as we do. I would much rather have a situation where there are no mandatory life sentences.

"Sometimes a murder - it's still a murder - but it can be very much less serious than another murder."

But Lynnette Williams, whose daughter Georgia was killed by Jamie Reynolds when she was aged 17 at his home in Telford, said the justice system should be harsher.

She said she could not imagine how she would feel if Reynolds had not been handed a whole-life sentence – and stressed that she "completely disagreed" with Lord Woolf's comments.

She said: "I hear too many stories of people committing murder or attempted murder and then given a life sentence before they are let out for being good or prisons were too full.

"I feel our family has been given a bit of light in that we know Reynolds was locked away for life and he can't do anymore damage to anyone."

Georgia went missing from her home in Wellington, Shropshire on 26 May 2013.

Reynolds was told he would spend the rest of his life behind bars when he was sentenced in December 2013 for her murder.

He later appealed his whole life sentence but his attempts were overturned by a judge.

Giving his reaction to the Court of Appeal's ruling, Mrs Williams said there was "no punishment severe enough".