tried to steal a diamond from the Millennium Dome was sentenced to 18 years. She criticised the judiciary for implying that a diamond was worth more than her daughter's life. (However, a person sentenced to 18 years is eligible for parole after 9 years.) Denise Bulger, whose two-year-old son James was murdered by two 10-year-old boys in February 1993, criticised the legislation for insufficient severity. She protested that whole life sentences should apply to children who kill as well. Judges The Court of Appeal and the High Court have frequently passed adverse comment on the poor drafting of many provisions of the Act, which have resulted in numerous appeals to ascertain what the Act means. In March 2006 Lord Justice Rose, sitting in the Court of Appeal, said: Time and again during the last 14 months, this Court has striven to give sensible practical effect to provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a considerable number of which are, at best, obscure and, at worst, impenetrable. In December 2005, sitting in the High Court, he said: So, yet again, the courts are faced with a sample of the deeply confusing provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and the satellite statutory instruments to which it is giving stuttering birth. The most inviting course for this Court to follow, would be for its members, having shaken their heads in despair, to hold up their hands and say: "the Holy Grail of rational interpretation is impossible to find". But it is not for us to desert our judicial duty, however lamentably others have legislated. But, we find little comfort or assistance in the historic canons of construction for determining the will of Parliament which were fashioned in a more leisurely age and at a time when elegance and clarity of thought and language were to be found in legislation as a matter of course rather than exception. Notes External links United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 2003 English criminal law Criminal law of the United Kingdom