THE mother of a murdered Ayrshire woman yesterday called for a review of the bail and criminal rehabilitation systems.

Mhairi Smith, whose daughter Shona Stevens was battered to death yards from her Irvine home 18 months ago, said tighter controls may have prevented the rapist and sex killer Gavin McGuire from repeatedly attacking women.

McGuire, 37, of Saltcoats, was jailed for life on Thursday for the murder of 16-year-old Kilmarnock schoolgirl Mhairi Julyan. Detectives are to question him over the unsolved killing of Shona Stevens.

Yesterday Mrs Smith, 62, said: ``A shake-up of the system won't bring Shona back but it could save other women from being attacked.

``Why was he allowed to roam free to do that? Only the authorities know the background. It's not the police's fault.

``Other families will suffer, whether it's now or in five years time, unless something is done to keep these people in jail and sort them out while they are in there.''

She added: ``Poor Mhairi's family. After it happened it felt like it was starting all over again for me. You can't describe the pain. I think it will be there forever.

``It comes back in waves, sometimes when someone in the street reminds you of your daughter.''

Shona, 31, lived with her mother and eight-year-old daughter Candice in Middleton Park, Irvine. Mrs Smith is bringing up her grand-daughter. Although divorced from her husband, whom she met in South Africa where she grew up, Shona was happy and looking forward to completing her biology degree at Paisley University.

Mrs Smith, a native of Skye, relived the day on November 10, 1994, when she saw her daughter for the last time.

``She left here at five to one to go to the shops. By 20 past I was looking out the window thinking, she should be home by now, then I saw the police walking down the path and a lady told me to go back in the house because they had found a battered girl.''

Shona had been beaten unconscious in a frenzied attack over an estimated eight minutes which took place on open parkland behind her home.

Despite the pain and sense of hopelessness Mrs Smith has endured, she remains convinced her daughter's killer will be brought to justice. ``I know the police will eventually catch whoever did that to Shona. I'm quite certain of that,'' she said.

Irvine's other unsolved murder, which took place just four months earlier on June 14, 1994, is that of 46-year-old widow Nan Montgomery, who was found dead in her Fleming Terrace council flat.