'Life should mean life', says Prime Minister

David Cameron has said "life should mean life" as the government considers US-style 100-year prison sentences for murderers and serious offenders.

The prime minister's comments come as the Conservatives consider alternatives to "whole-life" sentences.

The government is looking at the plan after a European court ruled in 2013 that such sentences breached the European Convention on Human Rights.

The 100-year terms would allow sentence reviews, satisfying the court.

The proposed change in sentencing regulations for England and Wales comes as Conservative ministers prepare to publish reforms to the UK's human rights laws.

They want Britain's Supreme Court to have the final say in cases relating to human rights, rather than the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.

The ECHR ruled in July that whole-life sentences - allowed under English law - breached the European Convention on Human Rights because they did not include the possibility of a "right to review".

The government was given six months to respond to the decision, which Mr Cameron has said he "profoundly disagreed" with.

He told the BBC: "There are some people who commit such dreadful crimes that they should be sent to prison.

"Life should mean life and whatever the European Court has said we must put in place arrangements to make sure that can continue."

One option now being considered by the government is a plan to allow judges to impose jail terms of hundreds of years, which would potentially allow offenders to have their sentences reviewed and reduced.

Policing minister Damian Green, who leads the committee responsible for drawing up reforms to limit the influence of the Strasbourg court on British life, told The Daily Telegraph: "British laws must be made in Britain. I want to restore the respectability of human rights."

The Prison Reform Trust's Juliet Lyon said the government was trying to "dodge complying with the Human Rights Act".

"It sounds like a dangerous nonsense," she said. "What it risks is further inflation in sentencing. People serving life sentences are serving three years longer than they did 10 years ago."

Human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC said that sentencing people to hundreds of years of imprisonment was a "cruel and unusual punishment", and was contrary to the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

"There is a place for mercy," he added.

The government's move comes as the killers of murdered Middleton soldier Lee Rigby await sentencing.

Mr Justice Sweeney said he would pass sentence on Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, after a key Appeal Court ruling on the use of whole life terms later in January.

There are currently 52 criminals in England and Wales serving whole-life prison terms.