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“I think the Home Office has been guilty of a knee-jerk reaction following the publicity about the missing prisoners. It’s unusual to care about him, but if anything is going to come out of this he has to be rehabilitated. I fear that his move could have hindered his rehabilitation.”

Mrs Lawrence said that she still dreaded the day that Chindamo would be released and would have preferred his minimum term in jail to have been longer. She said that she was trying to be objective and assumed that because Chindamo had been moved to an open prison it meant that his rehabilitation was making some progress. She said that his return was a “retrograde step”.

Mrs Lawrence knew nothing about Chindamo’s court challenge until she read about it in newspapers. “I am sad that the Home Office didn’t bother to contact me over this court hearing. The victims have human rights too,” she said. She now plans to attend the judicial review hearing.

Mrs Lawrence said that the Home Office’s behaviour had dismayed her so much that she was considering resigning from the Philip Lawrence Awards, which reward outstanding citizenship by young people aged 11 to 20 years.

“I have a lot to do with the Home Office because of the awards. But I am thinking twice about continuing this now. I am just not sure if I have any faith in the department and it would be hypocritical to work with them.

“I am trying to think of another way of doing the awards so that they don’t involve the Government.”

The Home Office gives the Philip Lawrence Awards a grant and this year provided £130,000. The awards have given support to numerous projects tackling crime, drug abuse and racial harassment and have helped thousands of young people.

The Home Office said that prisoners had been moved from open to closed prisons over fears that inmates would be more likely to abscond if they thought that they would be deported at the end of their sentences.

The High Court’s decision to allow Chindamo to challenge Mr Reid might open the gates for about 400 other jailed foreigners seeking similar actions.

BEHIND BARS

December 1995 Chindamo stabs Philip Lawrence to death

October 1996 Chindamo found guilty at Old Bailey of murder. Given a life sentence

November 2001 Lord Woolf, then Lord Chief Justice, rejects Chindamo’s appeal to reduce minimum term from 12 to 10 years

June 2005 Chindamo moved to Ford open prison, West Sussex

February 2006 Chindamo allowed out of Ford on day release

May 2006 Chindamo moved from Ford to Blakenhurst jail

July 2006 Chindamo wins right to challenge decision to move him

2008 The earliest date Chindamo can be released

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