The release of "cop killer" Harry Roberts( convicted of the 1966 murder of three police officers) after nearly FIFTY years( actually forty eight) years behind bars has predictably aroused strong feelings not just amongst the families of the three slain officers or even amongst the ranks of serving police officers but the "usual suspects" in Fleet Street- "murder is murder/life should mean life" et al.

Personally although I DON'T condone the murder of policemen,(or anyone sle for that matter) I for one find the media huffing and puffing manifestly nonsensical if not deeply hypocritical. Firstly (a) Roberts has paid an ENORMOUS price for his actions- spending the years of his life behind bars when he could just as easily have been starting a marriage, career(other than armed robbery) and a family (b) when it suits its purposes, successive British Governments have discreetly ditched the principle that "life should mean life/murder is murder"- case in point the release of servicemen convicted of murder in the course of the NI "Troubles" such as paratrooper Lee Clegg and Scots Guardsmen Fisher and Wright as well as those IRA members convicted of killing RUC officers as per the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998- as one wag put it at the time, "Britannia waives the rules- YET AGAIN!" never mind the calls for clemency for Royal Marine sergeant Alexander Blackman convicted of murdering a Taliban prisoner (c) there is another issue at stake- do we as a society really wish to "hound and harry the sinner to his grave"?

Think about it- FORTY EIGHT YEARS behind bars( when Roberts went to prison, LBJ was still US President, Harold Wilson Prime Minister, Brezhnev ruled the Soviet Union, the Vietnam War was just heating up, apartheid was in place of South Africa, I was the same age my grandnephew Adam is right now), there are terrorists (Irish Republican and Islamic fundamentalists) who haven't served as long a period behind bars as Roberts has.

No, the real issue is NOT that a now old man(78) has been released to spend what remains of his wasted life in freedom( for an admittedly self-inflicted offence), it is the continuing attempts by sections of the British press to introduce an invidious distinction between "popular" malefactors( British soldiers pace "Bloody Sunday") and "unpopular" ones( paedophiles, terrorists be they Islamic fundamentalist or irish Republicans, illegal immigrants and others including "cop-killers").

I suspect that given the run up to next year's General Election(in which "law and order" is due to be one of the key campaign themes),, Roberts's release has a hidden political agenda. Fortunately, neither the European Court Of Human Rights or its Convention played any role in the decision to free him.

Anybody think as I do?

Terry