News that murderer and child rapist Stephen Ayre has won an appeal against his ‘whole-life’ sentence is disturbing.

After all, the crimes of this dangerous and depraved man are horrific and it is clear that he is exactly the sort of person who should never be set free.

This is someone who bludgeoned a woman to death after losing his temper with her.

Then, while out on licence from prison for that offence, he lured a ten-year-old boy to his home, threatened him with a knife and raped him.

His actions on that occasion were, in his own words to police, “sadistic and brutal”.

However, The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, ruled yesterday that Ayre should never have been given a life-means-life sentence for raping the boy because that should be reserved for the most serious cases of all.

Obviously it is true that the toughest sentences must be reserved for the worst crimes and a line has to be drawn somewhere.

Unlike the court, though, most people would surely have thought that subjecting a child to such a dreadful ordeal while out on licence for murder meant Ayre had crossed that line.

In one sense, thankfully, the sentence does not matter as Lord Judge said “this offender is unlikely in the extreme ever to be released”, but it is no surprise to learn the father of his young victim is bitterly disappointed with the result.