HOME Secretary Jack Straw has given a personal assurance that the IRA killer of North Yorkshire special constable Glenn Goodman will not be released from jail early.

Mr Straw told the Evening Press that it had not yet been decided whether to grant Paul Magee's request for a transfer from a British jail to a prison in Ireland.

But he pledged that, if he does cross the water, the 30-year minimum sentence imposed by an Old Bailey judge on the terrorist for gunning down SPC Goodman on the A64 near Tadcaster in 1992, would stand.

And, speaking while in Harrogate to address the annual conference of the Prison Service, he said he was happy to write to Glenn's parents Brian and Margaret to explain the situation.

He said: "The main (transfer) condition is that they will be held in similar circumstances and for the same term. The prisoners who up to now have been transferred have been transferred on that basis and any transfer of Magee would also be on that basis."

But Mr and Mrs Goodman, from near Tadcaster, who have vigorously opposed any transfer, remained sceptical today, saying they had still not had a reply to a letter they sent Mr Straw on August 14 last year.

Mr Goodman said they had been trying for months to get an answer out of the Government about the "criteria" for allowing Magee, who also killed an SAS officer in 1981, to go back to Ireland.

He said: "Their letters are a lot of lip service. They listen but they do not hear us."

Mrs Goodman said: "We do not want Magee to go back to Ireland under any circumstances. We want it to be as hard as possible for his relatives and him, as it is for us. He should be made to suffer a bit. He has murdered two people to our knowledge so why should he be allowed to go back to Ireland to serve his sentence?"

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