Maxwell deserves every day in jail he has been given and more

Who knows who would have been blown to smithereens by Maxwell’s carefully amassed explosives if he had not had a previous assault allegation against him.

This meant that his DNA was on the national database and when one of his weapons hauls was uncovered a match from the scene was made to his records.

Maxwell had 43 stashes at eight locations, which shows a despicable level of pre-meditation.

Much has already been said of the supposedly long jail term he was given yesterday at the Old Bailey – 18 years plus five years on licence – but this man of 31 could easily be walking the streets in his early 40s, if he shows good behaviour.

There is a case to be made that the sentence should be far longer than that and that such a massive abuse of trust by a member of the armed forces deserves 25+ years actually served in jail. But prison terms even for murder in the UK have been low for decades – the minimum time served, the tariff, in life sentences is typically less than 20 years.

And even if Maxwell should now be embarking on a longer sentence, society can at least breathe a sigh of relief that he was not sentenced by Northern Ireland courts.

Sentences here are now pitifully lenient for serious dissident terrorist offences. Bail policy is also disgracefully soft.

This week the News Letter will again be looking at such terrorist sentencing in the Province and asking why it is so much less harsh than the rest of the UK.

When we have highlighted another area of leniency, the NI policy of granting bail to people facing the most serious terror charges, we have again and again been told that it is due to the European Convention on Human Rights.

As a society an elementary human right is the right of innocent people to life. We must rigorously protect that right from men such as Maxwell, of whom there have been many in NI.