"Road-rage" killer Noye wins appeal challenge

LONDON (Reuters) - Kenneth Noye, jailed for life for a 1996 "road-rage" murder, won the latest stage of his legal fight for a second appeal against the conviction on Friday.

The High Court in London granted Noye permission to mount a judicial review of the Criminal Cases Review Commission's refusal to refer his conviction back to the appeal court.

Noye, 60, was jailed for life in 2000 for killing electrician Stephen Cameron, 21, during a fight on a slip-road next to the M25 in Swanley, Kent.

Noye wants a second appeal after his first was rejected in 2001. The review commission has refused to refer the case back to the appeal court.

Two High Court judges, Lord Justice Richards and Mrs Justice Swift, said on Friday that Noye's lawyers had established that there was enough to his case to warrant a full judicial review hearing, likely to last one day.

Lord Justice Richards said Noye sought to rely on evidence relating to the direction and depth of Cameron's stab wounds, and the degree of force used.

Noye's lawyers also said they have new material critical of Home Office pathologist Michael Heath, who gave evidence at the trial, but resigned in September 2006.

They say the appeal court should be able to consider what the jury would have decided if the pathologist's evidence was not taken into account.

Noye, who is often described as one of Britain's most notorious gangsters, fled the country in a friend's private helicopter after the murder.