IT was a murder that earned a place in folklore and inspired the Michael Caine gangster thriller, Get Carter.

Fruit machine collector Angus Sibbet was blasted to death and his bullet-ridden body found dumped in the back of a Jaguar.

The murder, in South Hetton, County Durham, in 1967, had everything including talk of protection rackets and a police cover-up and the involvement of some of the criminal underworld's most glamorous figures.

Dennis Stafford, who twice made jail breaks from Wormwood Scrubs and Dartmoor and earned a reputation as a "playboy burglar", was convicted of murder and jailed.

Now, 35 years later, the legacy of the murder could mean the British Government's role in dispensing justice has changed for ever.

Judges at the European Court of Human Rights yesterday ruled that former Home Secretary Jack Straw was wrong to keep Stafford in prison after the Parole Board - which reviews prisoners' sentences - had recommended his release.

The legal victory effectively means that the now Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has lost the right to say when some of the country's worst criminals should be released after they have served their minimum sentence.

Stafford, 69, was jailed for murder with Michael Luvaglio, the pair having both worked together to supply the North-East's pubs and clubs with one-armed bandits.

Sibbet collected the takings for the fruit machine empire run by Luvaglio's brother, Vince Landa, last thought to be living in the US.

Both men convicted of the murder have long maintained their innocence, claiming they were in Newcastle 21 miles away when the crime was committed.

Stafford is still bidding to clear his name and has employed a legal team to look at the case again.

Now old enough to draw a pension and have a bus pass, he lives in a luxurious apartment at Stanhope Castle, Weardale, County Durham.

But his life is a long way away from the "glory days" of the 1960s when his involvement in one of the most talked about murder trials of the day made his name famous.

Driving a Mercedes Benz, he describes himself as a property developer, and markets perfume dispensers to pubs and clubs.

Yesterday, he said: "The European ruling makes me a very happy man, but my victory is when I clear my name.

"If you took a survey of the North of England, 90 per cent would say I was not guilty of the Sibbet murder and I still aim to prove that."