AN INDEPENDENT inquiry into the treatment received by a mental health patient who murdered a teenager months after his care package was withdrawn, has still not started - more than a year after his conviction.

The probe by one of the region's health authorities into the care of double-killer George Leigers has been held up because of the volume of work involved.

But officials from the County Durham and Tees Valley Strategic Health Authority deny they are taking too long to set up a panel to examine the case.

Leigers was jailed for life last February for the murder of prostitute Sarah Jane Coughlan, 19, at his home in Montrose Street, Middlesbrough. Six months before he stabbed her, doctors had decided Leigers no longer needed supervision as part of his rehabilitation for killing his wife, Rita, in 1987, at their home in Blackhall, County Durham.

Leigers continued to make weekly trips to collect his medication, but after the killing, detectives found he had not been taking it regularly.

Following his trial, Middlesbrough Primary Care Trust announced a joint review with Tees and North-East Yorkshire Mental Health Trust.

The probe was completed in June and a final report prepared for the County Durham and Tees Valley health authority so it could hold an independent inquiry into his care and treatment.

But, ten months on, the authority has still not set up a panel to examine the review's findings.

A spokesman said: "It is not particularly unusual that an inquiry takes this long to prepare.

"There is not an army of people working on this - there's just one or two people trying to do all that - and it's going to take time to do the preparatory and background work."

There was outrage last month when appeal judges said Leigers, now 48, should not have been ordered to spend the rest of his life behind bars when he was convicted last year. A stipulation that he should never be considered eligible for release on licence was ruled as wrong, and was replaced with a direction that he should serve a minimum of 21 years and 172 days before the Parole Board could decide when, or if, it would be safe to free him.

When sentencing Leigers, Judge Peter Fox said he posed such a great danger to the public that "life should mean life" in his case.

But Judge Findlay Baker, sitting at the Appeal Court with Lord Justice Dyson and Mrs Justice Dobbs, last month concluded the judge was in error in basing his decision on the dangers posed by Leigers.