28/07/2003

Martin freed from jail amid storm over tabloid payment

The Norfolk farmer Tony Martin, who was freed from jail earlier today, has become the centre of a media storm.

The press watchdog, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), is to examine the payment by the Daily Mirror for his story.

The payment of a criminal is against the PCC’s voluntary code of practice unless it is deemed to be in the public interest. However, the paper plans to serialise Martin’s story.

Released from prison earlier today, Martin has served two-thirds of a sentence for shooting dead 16-year-old Fred Barras and wounding his 33-year-old accomplice Brendan Fearon.

Last week, Martin was moved from his cell in Highpoint Prison in Suffolk to an undisclosed location following death threats. Two men, claiming to be relatives of 16-year-old Fred Barras - shot dead by Martin during the burglary of his depilated farmhouse - said that Martin would be killed for a £60,000 bounty.

However, despite bafflement by Barras’s close relatives at the “hitman” claims, police appear to be taking the threats seriously. A round-the-clock security watch has been set up around the farmhouse, even though the owner has not returned there.

A spokesperson for the Prison Service confirmed earlier today that Martin was a “free man”.

The editor of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan, said that the paper did not condone the killing of Barras, but described the way in which the British justice system had treated Martin as “appalling”.

Mr Morgan said that Martin had a lot to say about what had happened to him and that his “dramatic account of the events surrounding his case should lead to several fundamental changes in the law”.

(SP)

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