Blair tells victims of crime: 'People are literally getting away with murder'

Tony Blair told an audience of former prisoners, victims of crime and parents of young offenders last night that the criminal justice system meant "people are literally getting away with murder".

The Prime Minister gave his stark analysis of Britain's law and order problems during an appearance on ITV's Tonight with Trevor McDonald, pledging to put more criminals in jail.

Answering questions from a 12-strong panel of viewers, Mr Blair said he wanted to "expand the number of prison places", adding: "I'm afraid that's what we have got to do."

He also promised to alert people if there were a specific terrorist threat, but said the government had to "sift" intelligence to decide which warnings to make public.

Mr Blair said he was wary about issuing general warnings because they could "unnecessarily alarm people" and "end up doing the terrorists' job for them". He added: "The difficult dilemma we have here is this. Constantly at the moment, because of the terrorist threat, we have pieces of information ... coming across our desks.

"If there is a specific threat against a specific target we of course will warn people. But we have got to be very wary of acting on general information, of issuing warnings when they are not really justified."

The Prime Minister appeared moved by the personal accounts of guests on the show, including Tony Preece, who was driven out of his house by vandals, and Janette Hayworth, a blind woman who was mugged at knifepoint while standing at a cash machine.

Mr Blair said young thugs who terrorised people should be forced off the streets. "People are not being brought to justice in the way that they should do," he said. "People are sometimes literally getting away with murder."

He said the current setup was an "archaic 19th-century system", but added:"The trouble with the criminal justice system is that everybody wants you to do something about it, and when you actually do something about it they tell you are breaching civil liberties."

Ciaran Twomey from Belfast hinted that people in Northern Ireland were considering turning to paramilitaries for justice because the police were not taking cases seriously.

Mr Blair urged him not to turn to paramilitaries who were "virtually organised gangs these days" and said the Government had made it clear that the police in Northern Ireland should take day-to-day crimes as seriously as those involving terrorists.