I do not accept the excuse given by the PSNI 'that the release of details of a suspect could impede the progress of their investigation and compromise the chances of a successful prosecution'. The PSNI and their predecessors, the RUC had little difficulty in the past in releasing personal details of people wanted in connection with other offences.

Their counterparts in England have no great difficulty in using the Crime Watch programme to display photographs and CCTV footage of people they wish to question in connection with criminal activity.

Most of us believe in the principle of innocence until proven guilty. But we also believe that the police have a duty of care in respect of alerting the public to the dangers posed by those they know to be violent and dangerous criminals. Lessons should have been learned in the case of the late Attracta Harron, who might still be alive today, had the various state agencies discharged their duties professionally.

The man now being sought for questioning in connection with the violent death of a young Mother, Jean Quigley was known to the police as a particularly violent man who already had a conviction for the violent assault ten years ago, on 18 year old Lynne McGall and a former girl friend, Samantha Brown. The photograph of the face of his young victim Lynne McCall carried in newspapers at the time, shocked all who saw it. It still shocked people when it appeared in the Derry Journal on Friday, and led to the conclusion among the public that anyone who would inflict such injuries on another human being, let alone a defenceless eighteen year old, must be a psychopath.

Stephen Cahoon was initially charged with Grievous Bodily Harm, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, but was only given three years. It was left to the press to campaign against the leniency of the sentence which on appeal was increased to five years. At the time of his original conviction his young victim stated that he tried to kill her and the police also expressed concern that this violent man would strike again. In all Cahoon served less than two and a half years for the brutal beating that almost took both his young victims life. Samantha Brown was beaten two months after giving birth to his child.

Violence against women whether in the home by husbands or partners, or whether in situations outside, which in the past few years, have claimed the lives of a number of women, have exposed a weakness in the law, not just in terms of the sentencing of perpetrators, but in the more serious situation in that no compulsory register of violent offenders against women, is kept by the police, as in the case of sexual offenders.

This situation is reflected in our somewhat complacent attitude to men who beat women.

We read the statistics that such violence is on the increase but unlike our response to child abusers, or sexual predators, we almost accept the headlines without question.

The President of Ireland, Mary Mc Aleese during her recent visit to the City, described the extent of violence against women as 'shocking'.

Most of us know or at least hear about the local wife beater, the so called normal guys, whom we meet in pubs or at work. But have we ever asked ourselves what manner of human being drops a concrete block on the head of a defenceless woman, kicks her, stabs her and stamps on her body as she lies dying on the ground.

Or what twisted logic makes a man stab his pregnant wife thirty three times in front of their three year old child.

And what kind of human being beats his wife to the degree that parts of the bones of her skull are embedded in the walls of the sitting room. And what kind of law refuses to prosecute the partner of the seven months pregnant woman that he has just kicked down the stairs, killing their unborn child.

The list of gruesome stabbings, attempted strangulation, kicking, beating and burnings , sexual assaults and the evil psychological grinding down of the personality of the victims, until they become non persons, with no confidence, no humanity, just a punch ball for their violent partners, is a daily occurrence in our society.

We rarely hear the brutal details unless the routine beatings end in death and we even more rarely hear how many of the perpetrators are charged and convicted. And if they are charged what of the sentences.

In a recent Court case in Derry, a man who beat up his girlfriend, the Mother of four children, who was four months pregnant, at the time, was jailed for twelve months.

The Court was told that the attack was so frenzied and prolonged that some of the walls in the house were covered in blood. The judge, described the assault as fairly horrific, and stated that 'What concern me are the pre sentence reports which disclose a prolonged history of domestic violence, and also his failure to address that'.

Yet he sentenced this violent man to only twelve months, and with remission he will be free to do the same in a few months time.

The prevailing attitude of the law, dispensed mainly by men, appears to be based on the paternal notion that woman should be subject to their husbands or partners and if they step out of line, they deserve the odd smack.

How else do the dispensers of the law explain the lenient sentences meted out to men that clearly are not a deterrent to their violent behaviour?

Stephen Cahoon, the man wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Jean Quigley, is a classic example of the failure of the law to protect women.

His face and the faces of the women he brutalised should be put up on every wall, the length and breadth of this country. There should be no hiding places for violent men.