CONVICTED murderer Russell Causley could be released from prison within weeks despite his refusal to say what happened to his victim and wife Veronica Packman.

The results of a full parole hearing will be released on January 12 leaving the couple's daughter and grandson, Samantha and Neil, in fear he could soon be walking the streets.

They have long campaigned for Causley to remain behind bars until he tells them where he disposed of the body of Veronica, known as Carole, in 1985.

In recent years he "confessed" to murdering her, suggesting that he set fire to her body, scattering her ashes in locations across the country, including Meyrick Park in Bournemouth.

He then changed his mind, saying he had buried her in a "beautiful" location, before retracting his "confession" altogether and claiming to be innocent.

Neil Gillingham told the Daily Echo that the last full parole hearing took place in 2014.

Since then there have been two "paper" hearings which concluded he should remain in prison.

But Causley appealed the result of the last one, held in March this year, and was granted leave to appeal its decision.

The hearing took place on Friday December 15 and Neil has been told he will receive the result on Friday January 12.

Veronica Packman disappeared from the family home in Westbourne shortly after visiting a solicitor to enquire about divorcing Causley, who had moved his lover Patricia Ward into the family home a year before his wife's disappearance.

Causley attempted to fake his own death in 1993 as part of an insurance fraud, for which he was jailed for two years and Patricia handed a 12-month suspended sentence for conspiring to defraud.

While serving his sentence, despite the absence of a body, he was prosecuted for Carole's murder and given 16 years behind bars.

However, the judgment was quashed by the Court of Appeal before a retrial was ordered in 2004, which again saw Causley found guilty and jailed for the murder.

The case was the subject of a four-week TV series entitled: "The Investigator: A British Crime Story" last year. Award-winning former detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who unmasked presenter Jimmy Savile as a serial paedophile, studied the case in detail.