A North-East killer has lost his bid to strip the Home Secretary of his power to decide how many years he should spend behind bars.

If John Hope Taylor had won the Appeal Court action, it would have had a profound impact on all murder cases - including Moor's murderer Myra Hindley, who has been told she will never be released.

However, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, dismissed the challenge.

Taylor had questioned the power exercised by successive home Secretaries to decide how long killers should serve before becoming eligible for release.

Taylor, 45, originally from South Shields, Tyneside, was jailed for life at Sheffield Crown Court in 1989, for the murder of Susan McNamara. He strangled his victim after breaking her neck.

He was appealing jointly with Anthony Anderson, who murdered Thomas Walker and Michael Tierney, and was jailed at the Old Bailey in May 1988. He kicked to death the victims in the course of a theft.

Edward Fitzgerald QC, for the pair, argued the Home Secretary's power to fix tariffsin murder cases was effectively a sentencing role.

In dismissing the appeal, Lord Woolf recognised the power of arguments against the Home Secretary's tariff-setting power when he observed: "The law is not always logical."

But he said it had historically been the approach of both Parliament and the courts that special status be given to the mandatory life sentence, to mark the special gravity of the offence of murder