KILLER Albert Dryden is to go before a parole board review this month and could be released within the next three years.
Supporters of Dryden, who has served ten years for shooting dead chief planning officer Harry Collinson in 1991, say the review follows a psychologist's report drawn up in April this year.
The bearded gunman, who has been moved to a prison in Warwickshire, could now see out the end of his sentence in an open prison.
Yesterday, Mr Collinson's brother Roy, of Stocksfield, Northumberland, said it was a disgrace Dryden could be out so soon.
"Life should be life and it isn't long enough," he said. "The very minimum should be between 20 and 30 years.
"As far as I'm concerned he hasn't been in for five minutes. He hasn't even shown any remorse or guilt. He's just spent his entire life ranting and raving to everyone else."
Dryden, 61, is serving a life sentence for the cold-blooded murder of Mr Collinson as officers from Derwentside District Council moved in to bulldoze his illegally-built bungalow in 1991, following a protracted planning row.
Police officer Stephen Campbell was shot in the lower back and BBC reporter Tony Belmont injured in his arm during the dramatic confrontation at Butsfield, near Consett, County Durham.
Footage of the murder was seen by millions of people after the tragedy was captured by the BBC television camera crew and a photographer from The Northern Echo.
Dryden recently spoke out about the fateful day in a series of letters, revealed by The Northern Echo, sent to an Internet website.
In a letter sent in April, he described how he was convinced his psychologist would give him a bad parole report for the Home Office.
He wrote: "They all hate me because of what I did."
In the past two weeks, Dryden has been moved from Nottingham Prison further south to Rye Hill Prison, in Willoughby, near Rugby, Warwickshire.
His supporters claim he has expressed remorse about the tragedy.
Regular visitor Brenda Scragg, of Weardale, said: "I do know he really is sorry about what happened to Harry Collinson.
"But I think he was pushed to the limit that day. We can't predict what the parole board will say but we will be very pleased to see him come home."
A spokeswoman for the Prison Service said they could not comment on individual cases.
But she said it was common to have a parole board hearing three years before the end of a tariff.
Prisoners may then be sent to an open prison to serve the last two years of their recommended sentence.
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