BNP-backing Martin sparks alert

| Monday, 19 April 2004 Source: Evening News 24

CONVICTED killer Tony Martin is being offered psychiatric help after he was found hiding in a cavity in a barn after a nine-hour police hunt at the weekend.

A helicopter, police dogs and at least a dozen officers were involved in the search after a friend reported that the farmer seemed to have vanished.

Police were worried because the 59-year-old's car, Rottweiler dog and mobile phone were all found abandoned in a barn at Martin's ramshackle, 200-acre farm at Emneth Hungate.

Friends say Martin, who has previously been the subject of deaths threats from the traveller community, has become increasingly isolated.

He has hardly spoken to his mother Hilary, 89, in recent months and refused to see her after the police hunt ended on Saturday. He no longer sees Helen Lilley, one of his oldest friends.

His friend Malcolm Starr said it appeared the farmer simply did not realise that the person who called to see him was a neighbour -- and that was probably why he hid for hours in his barn.

"It sounds to me that, because a well-wisher, a good neighbour, had tried to get into his barn, he was frightened to death because he thought he'd got intruders again," said Mr Starr.

Mr Martin was freed from prison last August after serving two-thirds of a five year sentence for shooting and killing 16-year-old Fred Barras and injuring his accomplice Brendan Fearon.

His disappearance came after he expressed support for the Far Right British National Party.

He has admitted attending a meeting of the BNP in the past two weeks and says that he has recently been to gatherings of the National Front.

His endorsement of the BNP is likely to be seized on by its leader, Nick Griffin, in the hope that it will give his party a boost in June's local elections. Martin, whose late uncle Andrew Fountaine was a founder of the National Front, has also urged people to support the Far Right dominated British National Party, which advocates withdrawal from the European Union.