The public will be relieved that some dissident terrorist killers are being caught, convicted and jailed

The murderers of Sappers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey, prison officer David Black and PSNI officer Ronan Kerr have not been caught. The murderers of PSNI officer Stephen Carroll were found guilty of the attack, Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton, but their conviction became target of a campaign of alleged miscarriage of justice.

Meanwhile, courts were granting bail to people on charges of the utmost gravity, including murder. It seemed that if a defendant said they had a wedding to attend or a social event in Donegal, they were given release.

One defendant on a murder charge skipped bail and left the jurisdiction, and for weeks the police did not even notice.

At the same time, the courts were sometimes handing out alarmingly soft sentences. Last year, a north Belfast man got a suspended jail term for possessing blast bomb components. In 2016, another man, Conal Corbett got an 18-month suspended term for his role in a bomb plot thought to have been targeting police.

Since then, however, there have been some cases which secured convictions, and were followed by fitting sentences.

Last year, Sean McVeigh, of Victoria Street in Lurgan, was given 25 years in prison for trying to murder of a police officer.

Christopher Robinson, from Aspen Walk in west Belfast, was convicted of the murder of the prison officer Adrian Ismay (Robinson had also been found by police to be breaching bail terms when he was on release while awaiting trial).

And yesterday, Christine Connor, 35, was found guilty of attempting to kill police after luring officers by phone.

People across Northern Ireland will be relieved that some of these dangerous terrorist killers are being caught, and are facing penalties that might make other would-be murderers think twice before trying to take someone else’s life.

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