Hinting that the law is too lenient with "drunken street killers", Lord Chief Justice has shared that judges must look to impose longer and much stricter jail terms on people who kill in street fights or cases where "one punch causes death".

The Court of Appeal has been told by Lord Judge that the general public expects and deserves better protection from "alcohol-related violence", and to impose stricter measures and penalties is one way of discouraging these.

The new guidance has followed appeals by various Attorney Generals which call for tougher sentences in cases of sudden street attacks.

"The cases with which we are concerned involved gratuitous, unprovoked violence in the streets of the kind which seriously discourages law-abiding citizens from walking their streets, particularly at night. [It] gives the city and town centers over to the kind of drunken robbery with which we have become familiar, and a worried perception among decent citizens that it is not safe to walk the streets at night", explained Lord Judge.

Currently, such cases are "out of line with sentences imposed for murder" and generally call for a jail serving time of as little as 12 months.