A MAN who stabbed his fiance, while out on parole from his sentence for murdering his wife, has been jailed for life a second time.

Kenneth Milroy, 52, received a life sentence in February 1995 for strangling Kathleen Milroy, who he had married after his relationship with Lynne Bell broke down.

After serving nine years, Milroy was released on licence on March 18.

His relationship with Ms Bell, the mother of his teenage son, was rekindled and the couple got engaged.

But Newcastle Crown Court heard that when Ms Bell dumped him by text, he bought a knife from a car boot sale, travelled from his bail hostel in York to her home in Gateshead, and plunged the blade into her nine times.

Before the attack, on August 8, he had stopped off at Stockton to visit a prostitute and at Seaham, east Durham, to drink some beer in a pub.

The court heard how Ms Bell had fallen asleep on a sunlounger in her garden on August 8.

Robert Woodcock, prosecuting, told the court: "Her next recollections are horrific, in that she remembers feeling an enormous dead weight on her back and a knife being plunged into her back.

Ms Bell was taken to hospital, where her lungs had to be re-inflated.

Defence barrister Paul Sloan said: "The way in which this relationship was brought to an end served only to heighten his pain and agony."

A charge of attempted murder was dropped after an earlier hearing, when Milroy admitted wounding with intent.

As he had another conviction for wounding with intent, he received an automatic life sentence under the "three strikes" legislation.

At the sentencing hearing yesterday, Judge David Hodson said an investigation should be launched as to why Milroy was released when still clearly a danger.