Justice secretary Michael Gove has rejected a ruling that would allow road rage killer Kenneth Noye to move to an open prison.
He has overruled the parole board recommendation that would have allowed the criminal to be back on Britain’s streets within months over fears for public safety. A move to an open prison is often the precursor to a full release.
Noye, 68, is serving a life sentence for stabbing to death electrician Stephen Cameron, 21, in a road rage attack on the M25 in Kent in 1996.
He went on the run after the murder but was captured in Spain two years later and jailed for life with a minimum tariff of 16 years in 2000.
Such an intervention by the the secretary of state is rare, with fewer than 1% of parole board recommendations being turned down over the past five years.
That equated to about 40 recommendations out of some 6,000 since 2010 to have been rejected.
A prison service spokesman said: “Public protection is our top priority and transfers to open conditions can only be made when we are certain that public safety will not be compromised.”
The parents of Noye’s victim, Ken and Toni Cameron, welcomed the decision to keep him out of an open prison.
Two years before killing Cameron, Noye had been released from prison for handling bullion stolen in the £26m Brink’s-Mat robbery.
He stabbed to death police officer John Fordham in January 1985, but was acquitted at trial after claiming he was acting in self-defence.
