MPs demand law change after killer is set free

Jan 19 2005 By Mary Murtagh, Daily Post Correspondent

POLITICIANS yesterday demanded changes in the law following the release of a Liverpool man who killed his ex-fiance after less than three years in prison.

Mark Wilkinson, 29, strangled Nicole Lewis, 24, the mother of his two children, and then hid her body in a wardrobe at their Tuebrook home.

But 33 months after his conviction, former chef Wilkinson has been seen visiting friends and family in Tuebrook as a free man.

Now Merseyside MPs have called for new legislation to stop killers being given such lenient sentences.

Robert Wareing, MP for West Derby, said: "The fact that this man was released after 33 months in prison after he committed such a terrible crime is inconceivable.

"The judges in this case must have been living on a different planet. Judiciary is independent of Parliament, but perhaps that should not always be the case.

"I think a change in the law is feasible and necessary if only to get justice for families of the victims." Mr Wareing said he intends to meet with solicitor general Harriet Harnam about the case.

Wilkinson, a former chef, pleaded guilty to manslaughter at Liverpool Crown Court in September 2002. A jury had cleared him of murder.

There was a public outcry after he was sentenced to four years in prison and paroled after two years and nine months.

Mrs Harnam recommended that Wilkinson's case be reviewed and his sentence increased, but, at an appeal, the original ruling was upheld.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the office of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General said Mrs Harnam is unable to comment on individual cases.

The spokesman added: "The Solicitor General and the Attorney General will not hesitate to refer a case to the Court of Appeal if they judge a sentence to be too lenient."

Birkenhead MP Frank Field said: "There are far too many petty criminals in prison and far too many people guilty of serious crimes on the streets."

Before her death, Miss Wilkinson fled to a battered women's refuge with her children. Wilkinson had tried to strangle her several times and had repeatedly beaten her.

Following the news of Wilkinson's release, a spokesman for Speke and Garston domestic violence project said: "I am disgusted and really shocked."

A spokesman for the national campaign group Support after Murder and Manslaughter Campaign said: "The sentence did not fit the crime."