Some crimes are so horrific it's hard to imagine a punishment that fits.
But the men who committed some of the most shocking murders in Welsh history have been jailed for their entire lives.
Under British law, criminals who are given a whole-life tariffs instead of a life sentence are unlikely ever to be released as their offences are deemed too serious.
They cannot be released other than at the discretion of the justice secretary on compassionate grounds, for example if they are terminally ill or seriously incapacitated.
In 2015, the European court ruled that the UK can impose the sentences after they previously deemed them a breach of human rights.
Read on to see why these murderers have been handed the harshest of sentences.
Peter Moore
Cinema owner Peter Moore was the “Man in Black” who butchered Henry Roberts, Edward Carthy, Keith Randles and Tony Davies to satisfy his perverted sexual urges.
He was dubbed the most dangerous man ever to set foot in Wales at his trial in 1996.
Moore maintained the facade of a respectable business owner by day, but was a deplorable murderer who collected Nazi memorabilia by night.
Traffic safety manager Randles, 49, was stabbed by Moore as he slept in his caravan at Mona, Anglesey, in November 1995.
Moore told Randles as he attacked him that he was doing it “for fun”.
Jailing him, Mr Justice Maurice Kay said: ””At no stage have you shown the slightest remorse or regret for the killings. Nor for the 20 years of terror and violence that preceded them. I consider you to be as dangerous a man as it is possible to find.
“I shall have to report to the Secretary of State, advising him of my view as to the earliest date that you should be considered for release.
“I don’t want you or anybody else to be in the slightest doubt as to what I shall say. In a word: Never.”
The family of one of his victims was repulsed when Moore tried to overturn his whole-life sentence using European law in 2013. Edward Carthy’s stepmother sister, Lynne Haygarth, said: “He’s not human anyway so he can’t get out. No court will give him parole. He’ll die in prison."
Mark Bridger
The murder of schoolgirl April Jones revolted the nation in 2012.
Her killer, Mark Bridger, will die behind bars for kidnapping and murdering the five-year-old after his appeal to the European court was quashed in 2014.
The father-of-six snatched April near her home in Machynlleth, Powys, and her body has never been found.
The cottage where the murder is believed to have occurred was demolished in November 2014 as April’s parents Paul and Coral Jones looked on.
Bridger demanded a move from HMP Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, in the same year after he was slashed across the face with a blade by fellow murderer.
The move was refused – as were his demands for compensation.
He will spend the rest of his life in the prison, known as “Monster Mansion”, among the worst murderers, paedophiles and sexual predators in the country.
April’s mother Coral said at the time: “I hope he’s threatened every day for the rest of his life. Every day I’m suffering – I’ve got a lifetime of hell to live through.
“Him wanting to be moved is disgusting. He did the crime now he’s got to do the time.”
“Him wanting to be moved is disgusting. He did the crime now he’s got to do the time.”
John Cooper
John Cooper shot brother and sister Richard and Helen Thomas at their remote mansion near Milford Haven in 1985.
In 1989, married couple Gwenda and Peter Dixon were also shot at close range while strolling along the Pembrokeshire coastal path near Little Haven.
But for nearly three decades, their murders were left unsolved.
It wasn't until May 2011 that John Cooper was found guilty.
The shotgun-wielding farm labourer had stalked Pembrokeshire for cash and jewels.
A former friend claimed the serial killer had gambling and alcohol addictions sparked after he won a £90,000 fortune on newspaper competition Spot the Ball.
In March 1996 Cooper had also used a shotgun and knife to attack a group of teenagers, raping a 16-year-old girl and indecently assaulting a 15-year-old.
He will stay in prison for the rest of his life.
David Morris
David Morris was handed four life sentences after he brutally bludgeoned a family of women to death with a pole in South Wales’ worst mass murder.
Nurse Mandy Power, 34, her two young daughters Katie, 10, and Emily, eight, and her 80-year-old disabled mother Doris Dawson were horrifically killed in June 1999, in Clydach, near Swansea.
Morris murdered Mrs Dawson as she lay in her bed before he lurked in wait for the rest of the family to return.
The Swansea builder was jailed for life for the second time in 2006 after a prior conviction was quashed.
But in 2014 a leading academic claimed to have found fresh DNA evidence on the murder weapon that called Morris’ guilt into question, which was is the subject of a fresh appeal to the Criminal Cases Review Comission.
Morris’ sister Debra Thomas said: “My brother is applying to the CCRC because he’s an innocent man. He has always maintained his innocence and we have never doubted him.
“We’re not standing by my brother through blind faith or loyalty. We know he’s not capable of committing such a crime and there is absolutely no evidence against him.”
Matthew Hardman
Depraved Matthew Hardman stabbed 90-year-old Mabel Leyshon to death in a horrific ‘vampire killing’ in November 2001, in Llanfairpwll, Anglesey.
He performed a gruesome ritual,cutting her heart out, placing it on a silver platter and then drinking her blood.
Hardman, who had been Mabel’s paperboy, also placed pokers in the shape of a cross in front of her body.
He was just 17.
Hardman was obsessed with becoming a vampire and believed killing would help him achieve this.
A jury found him unanimously guilty after a two-week trial and the teenager was locked up for life.
Malcolm Green
The Cardiff man was dubbed the "Body in the Bags" killer after he was handed a whole life sentence for his murder of New Zealander Clive Tully in 1991.
Clive's torso, head and limbs were found in bags in Rogerstone and St Brides Wentlooge, the marshlands between Cardiff and Newport.
The victim was identified after a newspaper graphic artist produced a computer-enhanced photograph.
Green committed the grisly murder just two years after he had been released from another life term for the murder of a Cardiff prostitute in 1971.
The victim had also been cut up.
It was recommended that he serve a life sentence - but the Home Secretary gave him a whole life tarrif.
It later emerged Green's bloodlust and obsession with mutilation may have been triggered by seeing his younger brother decapitated by a train when he was just 12.
Other murderers serving life sentences in the UK
Around 70 prisoners have been issued with whole life tariffs in the UK since it was introduced in 1983, although some of them were convicted of their crimes before that date and some have since died in prison.
Some of the most infamous prisoners believed to be serving whole life sentences include one of the Moors murderers, Ian Brady. Brady was convicted in May 1966 of murdering three children between 1963 and 1965. He and accomplice Myra Hindley later confessed to two more murders in1987.
They buried the bodies on Saddleworth Moor, near Manchester.
Brady was convicted just six months after the abolition of the death penalty and is currently at Ashworth high security psychiatric hospital in Merseyside.
The youngest person to be handed a life sentence is Jamie Reynolds, at the age of 23. Reynolds murdered 17-year-old Georgia Williams after luring her to his parent's home and taking photos of her body to keep as macabre trophies in Shropshire.
He then dumped her body in Wrexham in 2013.
Reynolds has appealed to the ECHR to overturn his sentence which is set to take place this year.
Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, will never be released from custody after his appeal was overruled and he was deemed fit to return to prison.
The serial killer is currently in HM Prison Frankland in Durham for murdering 13 women.
Sutcliffe claimed his murder spree, which took place between 1975 and 1980, was inspired by the voice of God who had told him to kill prostitutes.
He was eventually caught after being arrested for driving false number plates.
Triple murderer Arthur Hutchinson was the first prisoner in Britain to challenge his whole life sentence. He gate crashed a wedding reception in Sheffield in 1983, killed the bride's parents and brother and raped a teenage guest.
Hutchinson lost his appeal.
see-http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/men-welsh-killers-serving-whole-11947020
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