Legal moves which could block the early release of the killers of the toddler James Bulger were launched at the High Court in London yesterday before three of England's senior judges.
Mr Alan Newman, lawyer for the dead boy's father, Mr Ralph Bulger, wants the court to review a decision by the Lord Chief Justice which could lead to parole in the near future for the killers, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who are now both 18.
They were convicted in 1993, when they were aged 10, of murdering Bulger.
They tortured the toddler and left his body on a railway track in Liverpool.
Mr Newman said the case raised "fundamental questions" about certain aspects of the criminal justice system.
It raised particular questions in relation to juveniles convicted of murder, he said.
"This court will be asked to examine the interplay between different concepts of rehabilitation, retribution and deterrence in sentences," Mr Newman told the court.
He also referred to reports of two separate incidents alleging violence by Thompson while in custody and told the court that information on these matters had now been passed to Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, by the Home Secretary.
He hoped the material would also be passed to him and his legal team. Mr Bulger (34), who was not in court, claims that in paving the way for early release of the two, Lord Woolf wrongly put the concept of rehabilitation before punishment and deterrence.
In written submissions to the court Mr Newman said: "At the heart of this application is the proposition that the Lord Chief Justice in his recommendations dated 26th October 2000 gave disproportionate weight to the factor of rehabilitation, as against the factors of punishment and deterrence.