A North-east squaddie who drunkenly shot and killed a fellow soldier walked free from court yesterday - without spending a single night behind bars.

Crown Court judge Mr Justice McLaughlin, sitting in Belfast, had jailed Lance Corporal John Michael Smith, of Hartlepool, for 18 months.

Earlier, Smith had admitted the manslaughter of Coldstream Guardsman Dean Troy Eddy, whose family are from Billiingham, Teesside.

The judge ordered that the prison governor take account of his having spent nine months on remand, even though he had been released on bail.

As one of the stringent bail conditions, he has spent the past months confined to Thiepval Barracks, in Lisburn, with very few visits from his fiancee or family. He was not allowed to leave the barracks complex.

Smith, 26, a Green How-ard, shot Guardsman Eddy on August 30 last year, at Shackleton barracks, in Ballykelly, near Londonderry.

In what Mr Justice McLaughlin described as "negligence of the grossest kind", he heard that Smith had wrestled a powerful SA80 rifle from a private on guard duty while he and a group of off-duty squaddies were waiting for a taxi at the gatehouse.

Smith, who admitted having had ten beers and two vodkas in the Naafi that afternoon, waved the rifle around "making machine gun noises as if pretending to gun them all down", the court heard.

Charles Adair QC, prosecuting, said that, believing the safety catch was on, Smith had cocked the weapon.

He put it to his shoulder "in the aimed position", pointing it at a nearby buil-ding where Guardsman Eddy was standing, he said.

Seconds later, a shot rang out.

A source close to the case said the judge's ruling meant Smith had to be released, as time spent on remand counts as double, which completed the 18-month jail term.

It is understood that, initially, prison and court service staff were unsure whether to free him, and calls were made to the judge for further instructions.

"Prison warders had no choice but to let him go," said the source.

"Maybe Mr Justice Mc-Laughlin had in mind that he should serve the other nine months of the sentence but, if he did, then the judge should have given him a longer term.

"He was confined to the barracks, but that was part of his bail conditions. He was not being held in the stockade but was free to walk around. He did not spend a single night in a prison cell."