CONVICTED killer Yvonne Sleightholme has lost her latest bid for freedom after the Parole Board ruled that she must stay behind bars.

The refusal either to release her, or transfer her to an open jail, comes after she has served two years longer than the ten years recommended by her trial judge.

The decision to keep her locked up in medium security Styal Prison has been blasted as "crass and unjust" by Ryedale's Tory MP John Greenway, in a letter to Home Secretary David Blunkett.

Sleightholme was jailed in 1991 for shooting dead farmer's wife Jayne Smith at Broats Farm, Salton, near Malton, North Yorkshire, and went blind while awaiting trial.

The jury had been told she lay in wait and shot Mrs Smith, who was married to her one-time fiance, at point-blank range in the back of the head. Sleightholme denied the murder and has continued to do so ever since.

Mr Greenway, a former policeman, said he believed Sleightholme's transfer, at least to an open prison environment, was long overdue.

"I am not a bleeding-heart liberal, but I do believe in justice, and this is simply not just," he said.

The Home Office has replied to the MP it is making inquiries about the Parole Board's decision on behalf of Lord Falconer, who is respon-sible for policy on alleged wrongful convictions, and Mr Greenway will receive a ministerial reply shortly.

The Parole Board accepted that Sleightholme's behaviour in prison, where she works as the chaplain's orderly, had been "exemplary" and said there would be real benefits to her through a transfer to open conditions.

But it said there remained more questions than answers when assessing the risk to the public - and felt she posed too great a risk of serious violence for release or transfer to open conditions.