Fury as BA pilot Robert Brown who was jailed for bludgeoning his wife to death with a claw hammer set to have parole hearing behind closed doors

The parole hearing of an ‘evil’ killer is to be heard behind closed doors, his victim’s family have been told.

British Airways captain Robert Brown used a claw hammer to bludgeon his estranged wife Joanna Simpson, 46, to death on Halloween in 2010, within earshot of their young son and daughter.

Extraordinarily, despite having dug a grave for Joanna in advance, he was only convicted of manslaughter. As a result, despite being given a 26 year sentence, he was due for automatic release last year – half way through.

That was only stopped when enraged relatives launched a campaign and lobbied the Government. The then Justice Secretary, Alex Chalk, eventually ordered a review of the case, which stopped Brown, 60, being freed automatically because it was ‘unsafe’ to do so.

But now the resulting Parole Board hearing giving him the chance to get out is looming - yet despite mounting calls for family and friends to be admitted, the Parole Board has ruled is to take place under a cloak of secrecy. Journalists and the public will be barred.

British Airways captain Robert Brown used a claw hammer to bludgeon his estranged wife Joanna Simpson, 46, to death within earshot of their children in October 2010. His parole hearing will now be heard in private

Last night Joanna’s campaigning mother Diana Parkes, 84, said: ‘Robert Brown committed the most heinous of crimes killing my daughter, so I am angered that the Parole Board have made the decision to not make Brown’s parole hearing public.

‘We have given up all our rights to privacy to do everything that we can to make sure this evil man stays behind bars. Why should Brown get to keep his privacy?

‘I truly hope the Parole Board can still see that Brown is a dangerous man and does not let him out.

‘Sadly, everything seems to be in favour of the perpetrator. The safety of the victims is put below the safety of the offender.’

Joanna’s close friend Hetti Barkworth-Nanton added: ‘I’m totally shocked the Parole Board have taken this decision to not make Brown’s parole hearing public.

‘A judicial review earlier this year in which Brown challenged the decision made by the Justice Secretary to detain him found that he is a significant risk to members of the public, including Jo’s family and friends.

‘Since we launched the campaign to block Brown’s early automatic release, this case has received a large amount of interest from the public.

‘If the judicial system want the public to see and believe that justice is done, then making Brown’s hearing private feels like a huge missed opportunity, especially as there has never been a public hearing of a power to detain case.’

Joanna had been about to finalise her divorce from Brown when he battered her to death in the former marital home, near Windsor.

At trial he said the marriage break-up had given him ‘adjustment disorder’. His plea of guilt to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility was accepted, in spite of the grave he had dug in preparation providing clear evidence he had coolly planned the killing.

When his lawyers earlier this year fought the stop put on his automatic release, in a failed judicial review case at London’s High Court, they maintained he represented no danger to anyone - with him claiming he is cured.

Joanna had been about to finalise her divorce from Brown when he battered her to death in the former marital home near Windsor

But it emerged a risk assessment found he posed ‘a high risk of imminent violence towards a partner and a medium risk towards others’, and that he had refused to engagement with behaviour programmes in prison.

His and Joanna’s children Alex and Katie were just ten and nine and in the house when she was killed yards from them, in another room.

Alex, 23, said earlier this year that he never wanted to see his father again and believed he could claim more victims, saying: ‘I am most of all concerned for my maternal grandparents, who cannot defend themselves.

‘I do not want to live with this perpetual fear that I will lose yet more of my close family.’

Poignantly, his sister Katie had written to the judge in the murder trial saying: “My father killed my Mummy and I’m scared if he comes out of jail too soon he might come back and hurt me because I heard him killing my Mummy.. He is the most evillest man I have ever known and I wish he wasn’t my father.’

Brown had married Joanna in 1999.