BRENDA is one of scores of murder victims' families calling on the Government to bring in whole life sentences for killers.
John Johnson, whose son Kevin Johnson was stabbed to death last year, this month led families from Wearside to present a petition to Downing Street.
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He said families of murder victims already had to go through the pain of losing a loved one, then the trauma of a trial and not being able to bury their relation for months only for their killers to be free to appeal to get their sentences cut.
"It's another bitter pill that you've got to swallow," said John.
"They should be doing more for victims' families than the rights of murdering scum.
"This was a brutal murder. They kicked that lad to bits for hours and hours for what was a £5 bet."
Fellow campaigner Dorothy Hardy, whose 27-year-old son Simon Richardson was killed by paranoid schizophrenic Sean Crone in Red House in October 2003, said she was disgusted with the appeal decision.
"This just seems to be like kicking us in the teeth," she said. "We were all on that march in London hoping that something would be done and then this happens."
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