IN 1978, Barry Williams finally snapped after a long-running row with his neighbours the Burkitt family.

He approached George Burkitt and his son Philip who were working on their car in the street. He shot George in the eye and fired more bullets into his side as he lay dying. Philip was shot five times as he tried to run away. George’s wife Iris came out of the house to see what all the noise was about. Williams fired a hail of bullets into her heart. Then he shot their daughter Jill.

The gunman led police on a 100mph car chase through the countryside, shooting and throwing home-made bombs at passers-by indiscriminately. At a petrol station in Nuneaton he shot dead the owner, Mike di Maria and his wife Liza.

It was not until the following day that he was cornered in Buxton where he was overpowered and arrested. Williams pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to five charges of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He was sentenced to be detained indefinitely at Broadmoor.

But in 1994 he convinced a mental health tribunal that he was no longer a threat to the public – I wonder how he managed that, by the way? – and he was released. Whereupon he contrived to change his name to Harry Street and moved to Birmingham, amassed another clutch of firearms and planned a further murderous attack. He was arrested on the merest chance and now he is back inside.

The most incredible part of this shocking tale is that Williams murdered several people in cold blood and they let him out! By what criminal act of irresponsibility could the authorities do this?

The appalling truth is that more than a few convicted killers are released to murder again. This awful fact makes the authorities partly morally responsible for any subsequent murders by the freed culprit.

When it was decided to abolish the death penalty in 1965, the abolitionists tried to reassure the public by the clear statement that killers would be incarcerated for life and that “life means life”. They lied. This promise is broken in almost every case. Only a handful of murderers have been informed that they will never be released. Most killers serve a number of years and then go free.

As a boy, I can recall my granddad the Leeds newsagent saying to me: “You used to be hanged for stealing a sheep. Now you can steal the whole bloody farm, murder the farmer and escape the noose. It’s not right.” And it isn’t right. The death penalty was conceived on the maxim: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This was actually meant to function as a restraining clause: you couldn’t hang the murderer and all his family and associates. It was just.

But what a falling off there has been since 1965. Convicted killers are now getting away with sentences as light as those served by serial burglars 30 years ago. As for the burglars, most of these get away without a custodial sentence. This is unjust. No wonder the public has lost confidence in the police and the courts.

I am not asking for the re-instatement of capital punishment, or for a return to the thumbscrews and the rack. But, for the health of our jurisprudence and to secure the trust of all our people, there must be a restoration of the concept that the punishment should fit the crime.

How many more have to be slaughtered before we do what is right?