- Tony Martin was jailed in 2000 for the murder of 16-year-old Fred Barras
Farmer Tony Martin who shot and killed a teenage burglar at his house has died at the age of 80.
The convicted killer was jailed in 2000 for the murder of 16-year-old Fred Barras and injury of 29-year-old Brendan Fearon after the pair entered his Norfolk home.
Martin took matters into his own hands as he came downstairs with a pump-action shotgun in August 1999, confronting the pair and shooting Barras dead.
He was jailed for murder but released three years later after the conviction was reduced to manslaughter.
Since then, the pensioner has said he ‘doesn’t regret anything’.
He added last year: ‘You may think I’ve got a chip on my shoulder but I’m bound to. I haven’t met anybody who says I was wrong. I don’t think people appreciate what happened. I’ve been naive, I’m too honest for my own good and I don’t like dishonesty.
‘I would like to appeal but you can’t because you need fresh evidence. My idea of fresh evidence and their idea [of it] are different.
‘I’d love to clear my name before I die but it may never happen. The law won’t allow it.’
Tony Martin outside his farmhouse Bleak House, in Emneth Hungate, Norfolk, shortly after his release from prison in August 2003
Martin shot dead burglar Fred Barras (pictured), 16, at his farm Bleak House in Emneth Hungate near Emneth, Norfolk, in 1999
His death was confirmed today by a family friend but no further details were given.
Mr Martin was convicted of murdering Mr Barras in 2000 but the case hit headlines again just a year later when the verdict was overturned on appeal. Following this, Mr Martin was sentenced to three years in jail for manslaughter.
Mr Martin walked free in July 2003 and still firmly believes his manslaughter conviction should also be repealed.
The pensioner inherited the £3million Bleak House Farm in Emneth Hungate, Norfolk, on the death of aunt 40 years ago.
Barras and Fearon raided Mr Martin’s property on August 20, 1999, with the pair travelling from Newark, Nottinghamshire.
But on hearing the break-in, Mr Martin came downstairs from an upstairs bedroom and opened fire with a pump-action shotgun.
Barras died while Fearon needed hospital treatment – and the farmer was arrested.
At his trial, prosecutors claimed Martin had booby-trapped his home and armed himself with an illegal weapon
At his trial, prosecutors claimed Mr Martin had anticipated the burglary and lain in wait – but he claimed to have been acting in self-defence.
He was initially convicted of murder and jailed for life in April 2000, with 10 years to run concurrently for a wounding offence and a further 12 months for possession of an illegal firearm.
But the charge was later downgraded to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility, after Mr Martin was diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder, and he was released in 2003.
A decade later in 2013, the law was changed with the Crime ans Courts Act providing a ‘householder’s defence’ if they used ‘reasonable’ force against an intruder that was not ‘grossly disproportionate’.
