FEARED hardman Paddy Conroy - once Britain's most wanted man - claims he's uncovered new evidence which could clear his name.

The convicted torturer is now planning an appeal against the conviction that saw him jailed for over 11 years.

Conroy was locked up for kidnapping and attacking a rival by pulling out his teeth and tearing his septum - the flap of cartilage between the nostrils - with pliers.

Throughout his time behind bars, Conroy, 46, maintained his innocence and now wants to clear his name.

Conroy, of West Denton, Newcastle, said: "I have offered to take lie detector tests from my prison cell but I was told I couldn't because it wasn't laboratory conditions.

"I have even offered to take truth drugs to prove I didn't do that torture because I didn't but I haven't been allowed to. Now, I am working on an appeal and feel I can win."

Conroy said the evidence of so-called supergrass David Glover should not have been used against him during his trial at Newcastle Crown Court in 1995.

Glover was jailed along with Conroy for the abduction and torture of Billy Collier, who was bound and gagged before being subjected to the gruesome attack.

The jury was told Glover had written a prison cell confession to the attack, saying he had been enlisted as "back-up" for Conroy.

But when giving evidence, he claimed he had suffered a breakdown at the time he wrote the note in Birmingham's Winson Green jail.

Despite this, it was ruled Glover's statements could be used as evidence against Conroy, who was subsequently convicted and went on to serve 11-and-a-half years.

Conroy said he used this time to compile a dossier of evidence which he now plans to use to mount a fresh appeal, having lost an initial one in 1997.

He claims to have accessed documents which prove Glover had also given police details about the unsolved murder of hardman Viv Graham on New Year's Eve 1993.

And he maintains this was passed to detectives at the same time as Glover's confessions about the torture of Collier but was not used.

It was only after Conroy and Glover's torture trial it emerged Glover had been a police informant, having been recruited by detectives working for Northumbria Police drugs squad in 1992.

Conroy added: "I feel I have a million points to make in an appeal and just want the chance to do it. The main point is that evidence from Glover was used against me in my trial.

"But he has also given information about other crimes that hasn't led to any convictions so how can it be accepted in my case but not in the others?"

Conroy and Glover gained notoriety when they went on the run after breaking free from a prison taxi. They went their separate ways, with Glover lying low in a caravan park in Whitley Bay.

Conroy eventually left for Spain, where he spent 14 months, before being arrested, tried and convicted.

Conroy insists he did not carry out the torture of Collier, which was said to be in revenge for rival family the Harrisons desecrating his father's grave.

He said: "When he got tortured, I didn't know it was happening, I didn't ask anyone to do it, it wasn't planned. It just got done.

"All the stuff with the pliers happened, it's just I wasn't there.

"At the time, I was going to break the legs of the person who had damaged my father's grave. I was looking for the lad who did it that day and I was on my way to his house and there was five of us in the vehicle.

"On the way, Glover started shouting 'There's Collier, there's Collier' and I had heard twice before that he was the driver.

"And someone had told me he had been in the pub the day before saying what he was going to do next, saying he was going to dig the bodies up.

"I was going to get him at some point but I wasn't even looking for him that day. I saw him and dragged him out of the shop.

"I took him along the back lane and bashed him about to make him tell me everything, and he did tell me everything. He said he had been offered £5,000 to dig the bodies up from my father's grave."