Lifer: Living With Murder (C4): GWILYN battered his chronically sick wife to death with a cricket bat.

She was, recalled the 81-year-old pensioner, a talkative women. "Many times I said I wish she'd shut up, now I wish I could hear her voice."

The second part of Lifer found film-maker Rex Bloomstein revisiting four people sentenced to life imprisonment that he'd previously interviewed inside 20 years ago.

He found a mixture of regret, remorse and, in some cases, a perhaps not unexpected difficulty in re-adjusting to freedom. He didn't ask us to forgive and they certainly can't forget, but to listen and make our own judgements. This was often difficult as even they often couldn't explain why they'd done what they had.

Gwilyn is out on licence, able to be recalled to prison at any time if considered a risk. His daughter visits him once a week, but the overwhelming feeling was of a lonely man who still feels his life sentence was unfair.

Peter tried to kill his wife seven different ways. He contemplated pushing her off a cliff on holiday, he put mercury in her food and kicked a candle over on his way out of the house. He received a life sentence for arson, serving ten years in prison.

"What an immature little boy," he commented on viewing his previous interview with Bloomstein. If he had his time again, he says, he would have walked away from his unhappy relationship with his wife.

His behaviour might have had something to do with being adopted or his Catholicism, he suggested. Now "my life is full of love and hope". We saw him get married again. His bride knew all about his past, found him "a nice caring guy" and "would trust him with my life".

On the other hand, Joyce - given life for her part in the battering of an old lady with a building brick during a burglary - still looked truly tortured. She's married and has a son (you couldn't help wondering what would be the effect her appearing on TV would have on his life), but is still paying for her crime psychologically.

She spent 15 years in prison, had a breakdown and cut her neck in an act of self-harm. She thinks about her crime all the time and feels remorse for the victim's family. "It's not something I'll ever forget, is it?," she said.

For Trevor - given life for stabbing a man - talking about his crime again provoked tears, not just for the crime but the effect on his life today. This once-tough man, who served in both the British army and French Foreign Legion, finds it difficult to forge relationships.

He'll happily sit in the park greeting strangers passing by, but a deeper friendship escapes him. He'd love to have a woman living with him, he says. He desires that so much it's painful. But he can't bring himself to tell them about his past for fear of rejection, or frightening them.

He consoles himself with the thought, "This is where I ended up, Lancashire - it could have been the grave".

Published: 04/11/2003