Many people will probably be amazed to learn that the fate of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, is still tying up court time and racking up costs to the taxpayer.

When this multiple murderer was given 20 life sentences in 1981 after killing 13 women in the most sickening and brutal manner, it is a fair bet that most people reasonably assumed that that would be the end of the matter as far as the courts were concerned.

After all, there are some crimes for which the only sentence can be a full life term and, that being the case, surely the depraved acts of this man fall into that category.

But every new legal twist and turn connected with Sutcliffe does more than just cost money. For a large proportion of the public, when the death penalty was abolished, they believed it meant the worst offenders would, instead, be locked up for life.

Whenever that cherished belief is undermined, their faith in the legal system is diminished a little too.

Of course, no-one should be deprived of a fair hearing under the law but, equally, once someone has been given a life sentence that should clearly mean life, it should not be open to repeated legal challenges in the normal course of things.

It is a travesty that the current system can sometimes seem to favour the convicted and the lawyers who argue for them, at the expense of the public and those whose lives have been devastated by killers such as Sutcliffe.