The government is to consider new laws to prevent criminals profiting from their crimes after Tony Martin sold his story to a newspaper for £125,000 immediately after he was released from prison yesterday.

The farmer tells today's Mirror that "the world's gone mad".

The Press Complaints Commission is investigating the deal, which could breach rules that prevent newspapers making payments to criminals unless there is an overriding public interest case.

A Home Office spokesman said: "We are considering carefully how the criminal or civil law might be applied to prevent offenders making a profit from their crimes through the writing or selling of their stories."

Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said that Martin was still serving his sentence.

"While released prisoners are serving the second part of their sentence on licence, many people must find it distasteful that they are nonetheless allowed to receive money by selling their story," he said.

Henry Bellingham, the Conservative MP for Norfolk North West and Martin's local MP, defended his constituent.

"It's something that's been troubling him a great deal, the question of whether people should prosper from their crime, but he has got huge legal bills and the farm needs a fortune spending on it after four years of neglect. All the money will be put to those ends," he said.