Gangster Kenneth Noye, who killed a man in a road rage attack in north Kent, will be moved to an open prison.

The 70-year-old, who was locked up in 2000 for stabbing 21-year-old Stephen Cameron in 1996 at the M25 Swanley Interchange, will be transferred after justice secretary David Lidington accepted the latest recommendation by the Parole Board.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Public protection is our top priority and transfers to open conditions are made after a thorough, expert, risk assessment carried out by the independent Parole Board.”

The Parole Board had previously recommended he be transferred back in 2015 but the suggestion was rejected by the former Justice Secretary Michael Gove.

Noye, who was given a life sentence for killing Mr Cameron and ordered to serve a minimum of 16 years, launched a high court battle to be moved in January this year and the Parole Board again recommended that it go ahead.

Noye, from Bexleyheath, was locked up for killing Mr Cameron, 21, in front of his fiancée Danielle Cable, then 17, after the couple got into an argument with him.

A manhunt was launched for Noye, who fled to Spain. He was extradited in 1999 and handed a life sentence at the Old Bailey in April 2000.

Career criminal Noye has a history of violence, having stabbed undercover police officer John Fordham to death in the grounds of his home in West Kingsdown in 1985.

He was cleared of murder when he claimed the 11 wounds he inflicted were in self-defence.

In 1983, Noye was involved with the prolific Brink’s-Mat bullion robbery, in which armed men posing as security guards entered the Brinks-Mat security vault at Heathrow Airport.

The six-man gang doused a guard with petrol, threatened to set him alight unless he opened a vault, and escaped with £26 million in gold bullion and diamonds.

Eleven gold bars were found and Noye was jailed for 14 years for handling stolen goods, serving eight from 1986 until 1994.

Most of the gold is still missing.