Essex Boys triple killer Michael Steele could be freed within weeks after more than 25 years in jail.
The 81-year-old was given life with a minimum term of 15 years in 1998 with Jack Whomes, 62.
They were convicted of the murders of drug dealers Pat Tate, 37, Tony Tucker, 38, and Craig Rolfe, 26, in 1995.
The three were shot dead in a Range Rover on an isolated snowy track in Rettendon, near Basildon.
The notorious gangland killings spawned a series of gangster flicks such as the 2000 film Essex Boys starring Sean Bean.
Steele’s parole hearing took place last May, but the case was adjourned until Thursday.
Both Whomes, released in 2021, and Steele have always insisted they are innocent, but a series of appeals and applications to
the Criminal Case Review Commission have failed.
In March, the Sunday Express revealed the CCRC has begun a fresh probe after a team of former murder detectives who spent four years on the case said there were disclosure failings and it was mired in corruption.
Dean Kingham, Steele’s solicitor, of Reece Thomas Watson, said: “Mr Steele is 81, soon to be 82. It is assessed he is not a risk unless he reverts to a criminal lifestyle.
“He meets the board’s statutory release test in that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that he remains confined.
“The Ministry of Justice are seeking to justify him remaining in closed conditions to access personality work for ‘personality traits’ which we are arguing has no relevant to his current or future risk.”
