meant that Hughes would not be able to apply for parole until 2045 and the age of 80. Timothy Morss and Brett Tyler, who murdered nine-year-old Daniel Handley from East London in October 1994 and buried his body near Bristol, where it was found five months later. They were sentenced to life imprisonment in May 1996 and the trial judge recommended that they should never be released, as he felt they would never cease to pose a danger to children. In November 2002, the pair were among four convicted child murderers who were issued with 50-year minimum terms by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett, just before politicians were stripped of their powers to set minimum terms for life sentence prisoners; this meant that Morss and Tyler would both be over 80 years old before parole could be considered. Roy Whiting, who murdered Sarah Payne in West Sussex in July 2000, was told by his trial judge when convicted in December 2001 that his crime (combined with the fact that he had a previous conviction for child abduction and indecent assault) was a rare case for which a life sentence should mean life. In November 2002, Home Secretary David Blunkett ruled that Whiting should serve at least 50 years in prison, meaning he would only qualify for parole if he lived to the age of 92 or beyond, although this in practice revoked the whole life tariff recommended in court. Whiting appealed against this ruling, his lawyers arguing that Blunkett's ruling had been politically motivated as he was on the verge of losing his powers to set minimum terms for life sentence prisoners, and that the government was under mounting pressure from the British public due to the recent start of a firefighters strike. The crime had also attracted widespread media and public attention, and led to calls for tighter laws regarding the monitoring of convicted sex offenders. The ruling also came days after the death of Myra Hindley, whose continued imprisonment saw her described by some sources as a "political prisoner" whose sentence was repeatedly increased to serve the interests of the serving government. Whiting's appeal was heard in June 2010, when the High Court (which by this stage now had the final say on how long a life sentence prisoner should serve before being considered for parole) reduced Whiting's minimum sentence to 40 years, meaning that he will