A MURDERER who stabbed a woman nine times in the back five months after he was released from a life sentence can apply for parole two years earlier after an Appeal Court ruling yesterday.
Kenneth Milroy, 53, was sentenced to life in 1994 for strangling his wife in a Gateshead flat and was released from prison in March last year.
Five months later, after his girlfriend Lynne Bell had dumped him via a text message, he stabbed her in the back nine times as she lay sunbathing in her garden.
Milroy, of Woolsingham Gardens, Gateshead, was again jailed for life after admitting wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm at Newcastle Crown Court on October 26 last year. His previous life sentence was also reactivated.
The court imposed a minimum "tariff" of nine years before he can apply for parole - but that was slashed to seven years by Lord Justice Rix, sitting at London's Criminal Appeal Court yesterday.
The judge stressed, however, that because of the reactivation of Milroy's previous life sentence, he may still be facing "many, many years" behind bars.
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