Daily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019 Page 39Dividing opinion: Tony Martin
today, 20 years after killing
burglar Fred Barras (inset left)
Pictures: MURRAY SANDERStaken from CCTV footage of his
shed on fire. ‘This was on my
property,’ he says. ‘arsonists. Who
are they? You’ll see it’s daylight,
too. They don’t even want to come
in the dark any more.’
He becomes visibly distressed
debating what these men might
have been after, recalling other
instances in the recent past when
his property has been targeted.
‘The police don’t care. It’s got
worse. It was bad before. Now I live
in a s****y bloody country. I still
can’t believe what they did to me.’
at his trial, Tony Martin was
called paranoid. His killing of
Barras was, the prosecution said,
the result of a long-term obsession
with ‘gypos’ who were out to take
his tractors, machinery and any-
thing else they could find.
His remote corner of Norfolk
was plagued by thieves targeting
farmers, he argued — and there
were plenty to support him.
There are still those who say
rural crime is the scourge of these
parts. Over the past few months,
there has been another spate of
break-ins across the county, to
the point where farmers have had
meetings with the police to discuss
their concerns. So the issues thatlanded Tony Martin in jail continue
to plague his fellow farmers.
Yet he took it to the extreme.
‘Yes,’ he admits. ‘I am extreme.
Mother always said she was
worried about me. a woman said
to me the other day: “I think you
revel in it.” I don’t revel in it at all,
but I am liable to get locked up
again the way things are going.’
In his version of events, this
county is under siege from
immigrants and thieves. Ordinary
decent folk are ‘barricading
themselves in their homes’. If the
police don’t do something, people
will be ‘marching on the streets’.He is a great supporter of the U.S.
President. ‘I think we need Trump
here,’ he says.
Martin never was a reasonable
man. His views are often objection-
able. He can be racist, sexist. Today,
he is definitely homophobic. He
says homosexuals and paedophiles
are ‘the same thing’.
Yes, perhaps his views have been
shaped by his warped childhood
experiences, but he doesn’t seem
to understand that those views are
abhorrent and illogical. ‘You might
think I’m bigoted,’ he says.
‘Tony, you are bigoted,’ I reply.
‘I am not,’ he huffs, and goes intoa rant about political correctness.
He can be impossible. Sometimes,
he doesn’t seem capable of com-
passion. Then he surprises you.
Back in 2003, he broke down and
cried about his dog. Today, it is
about his mother, who died in 2011
and who loved him and despaired
of him in equal measure.
‘She fell at the top of the stairs,
which is the one thing I told her
she mustn’t do. I said: “don’t fall,
Mother, do not fall”, but she did.
She went into hospital to have
an operation and she didn’t come
round from the anaesthetic.’
He got a phone call? He shakes
his head. His relationships with
his family seem fraught. He says
he doesn’t know whether his
brother is dead or alive.
‘I went to the house. My aunt was
in the garden, talking to someone.
I knew it was about Mother.’
He starts to cry. His shoulders go
up, his head down and his whole
body shakes.
‘I’m a very emotional man,’ he
says, eventually.
He is not a religious man, but,
since his mother died, he has felt
her presence. ‘I was out one day
and all these seagulls swooped
down. One was bigger than the
rest. I thought: “Mother?” ’O
UTSIdE the window
today, there is cawing.
Seagulls. ‘It’s Mother,’
he jokes. ‘She’s keeping
an eye on me.’
He talks about how he never
wanted to let her down.
did he do that? ‘I never actually
asked her how she coped when I
was in prison. I don’t know.
‘I do know that I lied to Mother,
once. She asked me if I was happy.
I said yes.’
He seems perfectly aware that
his mother rooted his life. ‘That’s
the danger, basically. I haven’t got
Mother to let down.’
Is he dangerous? What a pre-
posterous idea, he says.
There have always been worries
about his mental state, and his
doctor must think he is depressed,
because he is on antidepressants.
‘I’ve been having these headaches
and this ringing in my head, but,
when they get that sorted, I’ll be
fine. I need to get back to work.’
He no longer farms seriously, but
he does have land and that house.
Why not sell it, Tony?
‘and buy a Bentley?’ he says,
humorous again. ‘No, thanks.’
Additional reporting:
TOM HENDRYI visited the
grave of the boy
I killed – and
felt no remorse
Still defiant. Still raging at the burglars
who targeted his home. And now, with a
startling admission 20 years after the
case that gripped Britain, Tony Martin says...