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Arthur Hutchinson has been in jail for more than 30 years. PA Archive/PA Images
life means life
British triple killer and rapist jailed for whole-life term loses appeal against 'inhuman' sentence
Arthur Hutchinson killed three people and repeatedly raped a woman.
A BRITISH MAN, who has already served 30 years in prison for the murder of three people, has lost his challenge at the European Court of Human Rights against his whole-life term.
Arthur Hutchinson, 75, who killed three people and repeatedly raped a woman in Sheffield, northern England, in 1983, has argued his sentence is inhuman.
In 1984, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum term of 18 years but a decade later the British government converted his sentence into a whole-life term.
The ruling by the Strasbourg-based court gives judges in England and Wales the green light to continue imposing whole-life sentences.
The ECHR ruled against Hutchinson in 2015 — a decision he appealed to a higher chamber of the Strasbourg court.
Today, the judges rejected the appeal, saying a provision for serious cases such as Hutchinson’s to be reviewed by the British Ministry of Justice made his challenge redundant.
There are currently more than 60 whole-life prisoners in England and Wales, including the infamous Moors murderer Ian Brady and Thomas Mair who murdered MP Jo Cox.
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