Details have emerged of Mark Chapman's recent failed attempt to gain parole for the killing of John Lennon.

According to transcripts released yesterday, Chapman said he realised killing Lennon was wrong, and that he felt ashamed for his nefarious deed. "I recognised that that 25-year-old man, I don't think he really appreciated the life that he was taking, that this was a human being," Chapman said. "I feel now at 53 I have grown into a deeper understanding of what a human life is. I have changed a lot."

Chapman added that he'd felt like "a big nothing" before the killing, and saw Lennon as a "phoney". He said that seeing Lennon's face on an album cover was a sign that he had to kill the former Beatle.

In previous hearings, Chapman had merely explained his motives for the assassination - "It was just a tremendous compulsion of just feeling this big hole," he said in 2004. "Of being what I thought was a big nobody, a big nothing, and I couldn't let it go. And it just kept going very strongly, and I couldn't stop it."