sentences:  The trial judge, Lord Justice O'Donnell, said that he did not wish to be cast as "public avenger" but felt obliged to sentence the two to life imprisonment with no chance of release.However, Bates was freed two years after the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994, and Moore released under the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.Martin Dillon's own investigations suggest that a number of other individuals (whom he was unable to name for legal reasons) escaped prosecution for participation in the crimes of the Butchers and that the gang were responsible for a total of at least 30 murders.