THE family of a grandmother murdered in broad daylight say they are "over the moon" her Greenwich killer lost an appeal bid against her life sentence.

Nicola Edgington, 33, knifed Sally Hodkin to death in an unprovoked attack where she nearly decapitated her with a stolen meat cleaver in Bexleyheath town centre on October 10 2011.

News Shopper: Nicola Edgington.

The 58-year-old victim was on her way to work at Cunningham Blake solicitors in Blackheath when Edgington murdered her and attempted to kill another passerby - 22-year-old Kerry Clark.

Mental health patient Edgington was sentenced to a minimum 37 years in prison and branded "manipulative and exceptionally dangerous" by Judge Brian Barker QC in March after an Old Bailey jury found her guilty of murdering Mrs Hodkin and attempting to murder Ms Clark.

This month, Court of Appeal judges refused permission for Edgington, who had stabbed her mother to death six years earlier, to appeal her conviction and sentence.

Speaking afterwards, Mrs Hodkin’s son Len Hodkin, of Welling, told News Shopper: "Our family are over the moon really.

"We are just exceptionally lucky because other families in our position don’t have the luxury of a 37-year sentence."

The solicitor said, even though he did not expect her to win, the appeal bid was a "massive strain" on the family as his father Paul and brother Ian had to relive the trauma again.

News Shopper: (LtoR) Husband Paul with sons Ian and Len. Picture: David Higginbottom at Hilopics

He also criticised a system which allows mental health patients who have killed people to be given hospital orders and released within a few years.

Edgington, of Flavell Mews, Greenwich, was detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act after stabbing her mother nine times in her family home in Forest Row, East Sussex, in 2005.

But she was released in 2009 to live in the community while being monitored by a doctor, nurse and social worker.

The 37-year-old said: "We are exceptionally lucky in terms of sentence.

"A lot don’t even get to trial because they need a medical report and plead guilty on diminished responsibility.

"Most people get a hospital order and are released in two years.

"Somebody’s bound to get better when taking their medication when in hospital, but when out - there are a lot of things that need to be done in relation to that."

His family have joined support and campaign group Hundred Families for around 100 families bereaved by mentally ill each year each year.

He added: "On a serious note, we are extremely lucky.

"A lot of people who we met through Hundred Families who have had their family member killed through mental illness have been released into the community, sometimes into the same area.

"We just think there is no justice in that."

To find out more about Hundred Families visit hundredfamilies.org/index.htm