THE KILLER of schoolgirl Zoe Evans will not have a minimum jail sentence set until a new judicial body is set up later this year.

The news comes as a devastating body-blow to Zoe's grandmother, Anne Hamilton, who has been desperately waiting to see how long soldier Miles Evans will remain behind bars.

Delays stem from a Law Lords ruling in November ruling the Home Secretary's power to set a minimum tariff as illegal.

Minister David Blunkett was due to set 28-year-old Evans' sentence this month but his tariff-setting powers were taken away by the controversial ruling.

Mrs Hamilton, 57, of Westfield Close, Trow-bridge, said: "We have been waiting since April 1998 for a sentence to be set. I feel my life will settle down again once I know how long he will serve behind bars.

"My worst fear is that he will be out within a few years. Zoe would be 16-years-old now and I keep thinking about how she would be picking a career or choosing a boyfriend."

Mrs Hamilton will take her plight to West Wiltshire MP Dr Andrew Murrison who is visiting Studley Green Community Centre next Friday.

Little Zoe was murdered by her step-father in 1997.

Evans dragged the schoolgirl from her bedroom in Pepper Place and strangled her before dumping the body in a disused badger sett on lonely Battlesbury Hill.

Mrs Hamilton, whose home is adorned with pictures of the Warminster schoolgirl, said she takes hope from the 50-year-minimum sentence handed to child-killer Roy Whiting last year, for the kidnap and murder of Sussex schoolgirl Sarah Payne.

She said: "I don't sleep very well thinking about it all. I hope he is having a horrible time in jail.

The Law Lords ruling was sparked by claims the tariff-setting procedures were not compatible with the European Convention of Human Rights.

Dubbed the "murderers charter", many people expressed fears over the future of 22 long-serving killers who were handed whole life-terms by successive Home Secretaries. House of Horrors killer Rose West and serial killer Dennis Nilsen are among the prisoners affected .

The new committee will be headed up by Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf.