A MOTHER has been told the man who sexually assaulted and murdered her five-year-old daughter could be about to be released from prison.

Carol Lowther received a letter from a prison governor, breaking the news, just weeks before the 16th anniversary of her daughter Margaret's death.

The letter states that murderer John Johnston's life sentence is to be reviewed and he could be released this year.

Johnston, who is at Maghabbery Prison in Belfast, suffocated his first cousin Margaret in a pool of mud while he sexually assaulted her.

The attack happened on a caravan site in Morecambe in 1988 when Johnston was 17.

Johnston, who had turned 18 by the time of the trial, was found guilty of murder in January 2, 1989, at Preston Crown Court.

He was caught by police thanks to genetic finger-printing and is alleged to have told police that Margaret just turned me on'.

Summing up at the trial, Judge Sir Sanderston Temple QC said the circumstances of the killing were revolting, appalling in the extreme and abominable'.

Mrs Lowther who is formerly of Morecambe but now lives in Stockton still keeps a doll dressed by Margaret on the night she died.

She says the letter from the Prison Service has come as a hammer blow'.

The 40-year-old, who always wears black, attends Margaret's grave every day, often accompanied by her four other children.

She says: "It's too much to think he could be released with the anniversary coming up. Every time I blink I see her and every time I turn on the television it seems there's a story about another child being hurt. It's just too much to bear.

"I think that this time they're going to let him out and I just can't believe they would ever do that."

Johnston's previous appeals for release have been turned down.

Mrs Lowther once handed in a 3,000-name petition to Downing Street against his release and has carried out a lone picket outside his prison.