Tony Martin free in a year

Farmer Tony Martin could be released from prison in 12 months after his murder conviction for shooting a teenage burglar was today reduced to a five-year sentence for manslaughter.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf said the psychiatric evidence that Martin was suffering from a paranoid personality disorder at the time of the shooting was "credible".

This abnormality of mind, which had not been presented to the trial jury, led Martin to be even more terrified when

his remote Norfolk farmhouse was being burgled than a normal man would have been, said the judge.

As a result, Lord Woolf, sitting with Lord Justices Wright and Grigson in the Court of Appeal, unanimously quashed the murder conviction and imposed a verdict of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.

"As Martin has already been in custody for a considerable time, this means he will be eligible for parole in about a further 12 months," said the judge.

Martin, 55, dressed in a black suit and tie, had sat impassively in the dock through the one-hour judgment. Recognition of his partial victory barely registered on his face.

During a three-day hearing earlier this month, psychiatrists had told of his reclusive lifestyle, his collection of teddy bears and his obsession with security caused in part by the sexual abuse he had suffered as a child.

His lonely existence in his rundown home, Bleak House, near the tiny village of Emneth Hungate was likened to that of the Dickens character Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. He was described as "fossilised in time".

His counsel, Michael Wolkind QC, announced the fight would go on to the House of Lords to clear his name and prove that Martin, who is supported by a huge wave of public sympathy, had acted in self-defence when he fired three shots at the burglars.

However, in the judgment Lord Woolf warned that the law was clear on the "reasonable force" which is lawfully allowed to be used in self-defence.

"Because he was being burgled at the time there was considerable public sympathy for Martin. There was also suggestion that the law was in need of change," he said.

"If it is thought that there should be a change it would have to be made by Parliament. It was not even suggested in this appeal that it would be open to this court by judicial decision to bring about such a change."

Martin had lived at Bleak House for 20 years in a life increasingly blighted by break-ins. Three months before the shooting he had been burgled and had told neighbours he would "blow their heads off" if anybody tried it again.

Career criminals Brendan Fearon, 31, and 16-year-old Fred Barras - both with long records for violence, theft and general lawlessness - drove 70 miles in August 1999 from Newark, Nottinghamshire, specifically to burgle Martin's home.

The farmer had been lying fully clothed in his bedroom when he heard the sound of intruders. He reached for his 12-bore Winchester pump-action shotgun, which he held illegally after his licence was withdrawn by police following a previous shooting, and crept to the stairs.

At some stage, whether on the stairs or down on the ground floor, a torchlight was shone in his face and Martin opened fire, hitting Barras in the back and Fearon twice in the legs.

The teenager dragged himself out of the house and died in the grounds, where his body was discovered 15 hours later.

Fearon was later sentenced to three years for the burglary.

In April last year at Norwich Crown Court, Martin was convicted by a 10-2 majority of the murder, cleared of attempted murder of Fearon but sentenced to 10 years for wounding with intent.

Today Lord Woolf rejected the other grounds of Martin's appeal - that forensic evidence had backed his claims for self-defence, that he had been "let down" by tactical blunders in the jury trial, by his previous legal team headed by Anthony Scrivener QC and that the new psychiatric evidence would have convinced the jury to have cleared him of the murder charge.

Lord Woolf said the jury would only have been confused by this psychiatric diagnosis, and they already had the clear evidence from Martin himself about how terrified he had been, fearing for his life in the dark house when confronted by the burglars. In his ruling the judge ordered that Martin be sentenced to five years for the manslaughter and three years for the wounding with intent, and that a 12-month sentence for possessing the shotgun without a licence should remain intact.

All the sentences are to run concurrently.

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