BRETT Lill is clearly a dangerous man. He bit the ear of York doorman Alastair Farrow so viciously that the cut needed glueing back together in hospital.

He then turned on two policemen who came to arrest him, and tried to bite them too.

When his case came to trial, he leaped from the dock at York Crown Court and went on the run. He was finally arrested more than a year later - on his wedding day.

While on the run, Lill was convicted of wounding Mr Farrow with intent. When he finally appeared before York Crown Court for sentence, the court heard he had 73 previous convictions - including a five-year sentence handed down in June 2000, also for wounding with intent.

Sentencing Lill to life imprisonment, Judge Paul Hoffman told him: "You are a very dangerous man.. In my view you should not be released to the public until you are feeble."

In fact, Lill could well be a free man in as little as two-and-a-half years. That was the tariff set by the judge yesterday under national sentencing policies.

This is a sentence that once again makes a mockery of the concept of life imprisonment.

The judge's hands were tied. He had to pass a life sentence under the "two strikes and you're out law" because of Lill's previous conviction for wounding with intent.

But too often we see lifers - men such as Lill, and the "walking time bomb" Shaun Hudson - walk free after serving only a few years.

This newspaper does not believe that every life sentence should necessarily mean life.

Many different crimes, some more serious than others, attract such a sentence Lill's crimes are not among the very worst. He did not kill anyone.

But even so, two-and-a-half years does not seem enough for a man the judge himself declared to be a danger.