Teacher's release from Japan jail

Mr Loughlin was arrested after a fatal bar brawl

A teacher jailed for four years' hard labour in Japan for a crime he insists he did not commit is to be released on parole next month, the Foreign Office has confirmed.

Patrick Loughlin, 34, from Wrexham, was working as an English teacher in Kariya, Japan when was convicted of killing a man during a brawl in 1999.

Denying he was responsible for the fatality, Mr Loughlin claimed he was wrongly convicted after a Japanese lawyer - would could not speak English - entered a guilty plea on his behalf.

A campaign to bring him back to the UK has been supported by his MP Martyn Jones and Glenys Kinnock MEP.

In May last year, there was unsuccessful efforts by politicians for Japan authorities to sign up to a European convention on prisoner transfers which would have allowed Mr Loughlin to serve the rest of his sentence in the UK.

The manager of international pop singer Mick Hucknell also become a supporter of the campaign

Mrs Loughlin told how her son described being beaten

Ian Grenfell, who looks after the leader singer of the band Simply Red raised thousands of pounds by running the New York marathon to help pay for a new team of lawyers.

His appeal against the conviction was turned down in October 2001 by the Japanese Supreme Court although it did cut his sentence by 15 months to two years and nine months.

The prisoner's parents have been at the forefront of a campaign to win his freedom, and last year lobbied Foreign Office Minister Baroness Amos.

His mother Kathleen said her son was beaten by prison guards when he was kept at the Nagoya Detention Centre before he started his sentence.