Tony Martin is due for release in July

Lawyers for jailed farmer Tony Martin have won an urgent hearing of his High Court challenge to the Parole Board's refusal to review its decision not to grant him early release.

A High Court judge ruled it was "in the interests of justice" that his application for permission to seek judicial review should be heard next Tuesday.

The plea for an urgent hearing was made because Martin, 58, who shot dead a teenage burglar, is due to leave prison as early as 28 July.

He will have served two-thirds of his five-year sentence for killing 16-year-old burglar Fred Barras.

Barras, of Newark, Nottinghamshire, was shot dead when he broke into Martin's remote Fenland farmhouse in August 1999 with accomplice Brendon Freaon, 33, also from Newark.

Crucial report

The Parole Board has ruled Martin ineligible for release any earlier after considering reports that he showed no contrition for shooting the teenager.

Martin's solicitor James Saunders had sent the Parole Board information, including a crucial psychiatric report, which he claimed they did not have while making their decision to refuse early release.

Martin, of Emneth Hunglate, Norfolk, was convicted of murder and wounding by a jury at Norwich Crown Court and jailed for life.

That was reduced to manslaughter and the sentence to five years by the Court of Appeal in October 2001.

Fearon, who was shot in the leg by Martin, earlier this month failed in a bid to claim damages for his injuries.