A WOMAN has told of her horror at learning that the man who raped and murdered her five-year-old daughter has been released from prison.

John Johnston has been released on licence from Maghaberry Prison, Belfast, after serving 15 years for the rape and murder of his cousin, Margaret Lowther, in 1988.

Her mother, Carol Lowther, of Stockton, said: "I feel terrible. I know he will kill again."

She has vowed not to let her ten-year-old daughter, Charmaine, go to school while Johnston is at large.

His whereabouts are unknown, but prison sources suggest that he is in England.

Life sentences review commissioners in Northern Ireland examined Johnston's case last month and agreed he was suitable for release. He completed the minimum tariff of 14 years set by Northern Ireland's Chief Justice.

Conditions on his licence ban him from going near the scene of Margaret's murder, in Morecambe, Lancashire, or Mrs Lowther's home.

But Mrs Lowther said: "This does not reassure me. I feel completely on edge. It has brought back some awful memories."

Margaret was murdered at a gipsy caravan site in February 1988, when Johnston was 17.

He suffocated the youngster in a pool of mud while raping her - actions described by the trial judge as "revolting, appalling in the extreme and abominable".

He was jailed in 1989 and moved to the Belfast prison a year later to be near relatives, despite the fact that they disowned him over the crime.