Convicted arsonist David Blagdon has been moved to low-security Wellingborough Prison in Northamptonshire.

Blagdon, 49, who was sentenced to life imprisonment at Oxford Crown Court for setting fire to some curtains in an empty church at South Hinksey, near Oxford, more than 20 years ago, has now been in almost as many jails as he has spent years inside.

And in an exclusive interview with the Oxford Mail, he claimed that because of the high profile nature of his controversial case, he has been warned off speaking to the Press by prison authorities.

He said: "I'm being pushed around from pillar to post and now they have warned me about talking to you. They don't like it."

Blagdon, whose case was considered two months ago by a Parole Board hearing, is desperate to be transferred to an open prison which would be the first positive move towards his eventual release. "But I've been told that this will take at least another two months" he said, "and I'm getting sick of it. I'm still waiting to be reclassified as a Category D prisoner."

In the course of his sentence, Blagdon has served terms in prisons the length and breadth of the land including a spell at HMP Bullingdon in Oxfordshire, where the Oxford Mail was the first newspaper to record his plight inside.

Wellingborough is a category C prison.