Marie McCourt wishes that Helen's Law was tougher

The Prisoners (Disclosure of Information about Victims) Bill – which gained royal assent last month and is due to come into force next year – will not bar the release of killers from jail if they do not reveal where they hid their victim’s body.

But it will make it a legal requirement for the Parole Board to consider this factor when deciding if a criminal is safe to be released.

Marie McCourt, the mother of Helen McCourt, who the law is named after, said she hopes it will help families even if it does not guarantee a killer will remain in prison until they tell the truth about the victim.

Insurance clerk Miss McCourt vanished on her way home from work in 1988. Her murderer, Billinge pub landlord Ian Simms, was released from prison earlier this year despite never revealing where he hid her body.

Mrs McCourt, 77, said: “I wish the law could have gone further, definitely.

“It’s upsetting to hear the law may not have helped our case.

“Simms has a violent history. How can they say a man like that – who also won’t reveal information – is safe to be released?

“But they have to make sure Helen’s Law makes it harder and makes it far more difficult than it has been.”

She said hiding a body causes “awful” trauma for families who are left “suffering for the rest of their lives”.

She added: “All I want and anyone in the same situation as me wants is to be able to have our loved ones back, out of the killer’s clutches, so we can lay their remains to rest.”

Her comments came after earlier this year the grandson of a murderer who refused to reveal where he hid his wife’s body 35 years ago complained that the Bill was not “worth the paper it’s written on”.

Neil Gillingham, the grandson of Russell Causley who was jailed for life for killing Carole Packman a year after he moved his lover into their home in Bournemouth, previously described a Parole Board ruling to release Causley from prison as “contemptible” and “morally wrong”.