A man who admitted killing an Oxford drug addict saw the murder case against him dismissed for the second time yesterday.

A so-called double jeopardy case against Ricky San Juliano - formerly known as Ricky Miell- was dropped after three senior Court of Appeal judges ruled the new police case, based on his confession to the killing, was unsound.

A jury had cleared him of murdering Steven Burton at a house in Cowley Road in 1996.

He was later jailed for a series of robberies and burglaries, and for perjury, for lying at his murder trial. While in prison, he admitted being the killer.

But, after his rearrest this year on suspicion of murder, he said he concocted the confession only to get out of prison early on parole, by showing remorse for his previous life and to impress other inmates.

It left senior judges saying a jury could not rely on the evidence if the case was to return to court for a fresh trial.

The ruling - which halted what would have been only the country's second double jeopardy case involving a retrial in a murder case - left the victim's mother Carol Burton distraught.

She said: "I'm bitterly disappointed at the outcome."

Police were called to 306 Cowley Road on January 5, 1996, where they found heroin addict Mr Burton slumped in a chair in the kitchen, dying from a knife wound to the stomach.

Mr San Juliano, who now lives in Bradley Road, Nuffield, in south Oxfordshire, was originally acquitted of murdering Mr Burton after telling the jury he was in a different room when the victim was stabbed.

It was three years later he admitted perjury, claiming he had found God and wanted to clear his conscience.

A change in the law in 2005 allowed people to be tried for a second time for a crime and detectives from Thames Valley Police arrested Mr San Juliano in July this year.

But in an interview, he told them he had tailored his confession as part of a ploy to get out of prison early on a robbery charge, although he purposely made some errors so that it did not match the forensic evidence.

He said: "I thought long and hard and planned what I was going to say and made sure there was many details that sounded believable.

"I did give indications throughout the statement that it was a lie, because I wanted to see how much power I had and wanted to see if anyone at any point would say: 'Well, actually, these are the given facts of the case'.

"It was all one very complex game, which I hate to say ended the way I wanted it to end. I got my parole early."

Sitting at the Appeal Court, Lord Justice Hooper said inconsistencies in the confession meant the new evidence was not compelling or reliable.

He added: "We have found it very difficult to know what to make of all this and, were there a retrial, we think that the jury would be in the same position."

He believed the errors in the confession would leave the jury unsure if Mr San Juliano was the killer.

It was the first time police in Oxfordshire had used the change in the law which allows for someone to be retried for a crime for which they have already appeared in court.

Thames Valley Police have set up a review team of senior detectives, dedicated to solving outstanding murders from the past 50 years.

Det Supt Barry Halliday, head of the team, said the Court of Appeal's decision was not a disaster for the squad.

He said: "In no way does this judgement derail the work."