BREAKING: Monster who killed three members of Sheffield family LOSES appeal against whole-life prison term

Arthur Hutchinson had claimed that the punishment amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment as he had no hope of release.

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights this afternoon concluded that whole-life sentences in the UK can be regarded as compatible with the article, which says no one should be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

But judges found there had been no violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

This paves the way for UK courts to continue imposing the whole-life sentence.

The killer, now aged 75, broke into a home in Dore before stabbing to death Basil and Avril Laitner and then knifing their son Richard.

Just hours earlier on that fateful night in October 1983 the family had hosted a wedding celebration.

It was thought that Hutchinson's motive was to commit armed robbery. The Hartlepool-born killer went on the run but was later caught. He accused a newspaper journalist of committing his terrible crimes but was found guilty and jailed for life in 1984.

Hutchinson was jailed in 1984 for his crimes.

The judge in his original trial ruled that he should serve a minimum of 18 years but then-home secretary Leon Brittan later determined he should face the whole-life tariff.

In 2008, Hutchinson had a domestic appeal against whole-life tariffs dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

Then in 2015 the European Court of Human Rights threw out his case, but he applied for it to be passed to the Strasbourg court's Grand Chamber.