THE disgraced former coroner for Carmarthenshire, caged for siphoning £1.2 million from a dead farmer's fortune, has won the right to challenge his five-year jail term.

William John Owen, 81, plundered the millions left by bachelor farmer, John Williams, despite being trusted as executor of his will.

Much of Mr Williams' estate was left to charities, London's Appeal Court heard, but Owen charged "exorbitant fees" for the task of administering the dead man's estate.

"What is clear is that, after not very many years, the money simply stopped being applied for the charities' use", Mrs Justice McGowan told the court today.

"A very large sum of money was extracted by Owen for his professional fees," said the judge, who was sitting with Lord Justice McCombe.

An intensive forensic probe was launched, which disclosed that £1.2 million had been charged as fees between 2003 and 2011.

"There was no substantial work done during that time that could even begin to justify those exorbitant charges," the judge added.

Owen, from Llandeilo, was jailed for five years at Cardiff Crown Court in October 2014 after he admitted a string of theft and false accounting charges.

He was also hit with a confiscation order totalling over £125,000.

Owen, a veteran solicitor and coroner, was a "highly respected" pillar of the community who turned to theft to prop up his ailing law business.

But his case reached the Appeal Court today as the pensioner successfully applied for permission to appeal against his sentence.

Mrs Justice McGowan referred to his previous impeccable character and added: "He lost his livelihood, his good character and his liberty".

Given his age and compelling personal circumstances, the judge said she was "persuaded that the correct course is to give him leave to pursue this appeal".

No date was fixed for the full hearing of the appeal.