THE family of a teenager murdered by double-killer George Leigers have reacted with anger to a ruling that he could be released from prison.

Judges at the Criminal Appeal Court in London have ordered that Leigers should be considered for parole after serving 21 years and 172 days - by which time he will be nearing his 70th birthday.

The move overruled a stipulation from the trial judge last year that the 48-year-old was such a danger to the public that he should never be set free.

Leigers was convicted of murdering Sarah Jane Coughlan, 19, after a jury rejected his claim that his state of mind was severely impaired by a long-standing mental health problem.

Seventeen years earlier, an identical plea of guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility was accepted by prosecutors after he killed his wife Rita.

Sarah's parents were too upset to talk to the media about the developments in the appeal court, but told the man who led the Leiger's of their anger.

Detective Inspector Gordon Lang said: "They have lost their daughter and a small crumb of comfort was that the person responsible would never get out.

"But the thought that Leigers might one day be free has made them extremely upset, and Thursday's case has brought it all back to the surface."

Father-of-three Leigers was sentenced to be treated in a mental hospital indefinitely after killing his wife at their home in Blackhall, County Durham. But experts considered his condition had improved and moved him to a supervised placement at a specialist mental health nursing home, and then into the community in 1997.

In March 2003, doctors decided he no longer needed supervision and his care package was withdrawn. But within five months he had struck again.

He took Sarah back to his Middlesbrough home for sex, but stabbed her to death on his bed with a Second World War bayonet he had hidden under his pillow.

Leigers, who is now detained in top security Rampton Hospital, Nottinghamshire, fled from the terraced house in Montrose Street but later handed himself into police in Scotland.

David Hines, of the North of England Victims' Association, and Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, also spoke out against this week's ruling.

Mr Brennan said: "This individual is clearly a danger to young women and the trial judge appears to have been absolutely right.

"He has been given one chance, which many would suggest he should not have been given, but went on to take another life through murder."

Mr Hines added: "After 12 years of campaigning, nothing surprises me, but I just feel really sorry for Mr and Mrs Coughlan.