A SADISTIC sex killer should be freed from prison, the parole board has said.
Steven Ling raped and fatally knifed Joanne Tulip 60 times in a sick and twisted Christmas Day attack in 1997.
Ling, now 49, murdered the 29-year-old at his Northumberland home before carving swastikas and crosses onto her lifeless body.
He was locked up for life in 1998 and ordered to spend at least 18 years in prison.
But a parole board has now said he can be freed – just 27 years after the horror.
It comes after the “coward” killer wouldn’t leave his cell to face Joanne’s family at a public parole hearing in July this year.
Ling “refused to take part” in the review because of “his distress at the thought of a public hearing”, according to parole documents.
A prison psychologist said the prospect of giving evidence in public about his wicked crimes was “triggering experiences of internalised shame”.
He also claimed to be suffering poor mental health, we can reveal.
Joanne’s mum Doreen Soulsby said Ling was using excuses to avoid having to appear in public.
At the time of brutal attack, aged 23, Ling had a sick sexual obsession with cutting skin.
Doreen previously said Ling would be a “danger to women and he shouldn’t ever walk free”.
She said: “He is still dangerous – it’s the way his head is wired.
“It was a masochistic, sadistic, depraved attack on Joanne. He was 23 when he committed that offence. Now he’s 49 and he’s been locked up all his young life.
“I think his sexual appetite will have been building behind bars and if he got to an open prison, there would be days he would be released into the community.
“If he saw pretty girls walking down the street, what would happen? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
“He’s a danger to women and he shouldn’t ever walk free.
“You can’t mend people like him. He’s just bad. You don’t take the risk.
“It’s very wearing to have to keep fighting but I want justice for my daughter and that’s what keeps me going.
“It gives me inner strength, I will fight it until the bitter end.
“I never want him released.”
