AN off-duty police officer helped save the life of a man who had been stabbed in the neck by a love rival.

John Raper, 36, was jailed for six years yesterday for stabbing Paul Davies, 34, with a kitchen knife.

Detective Sergeant Jim Cunningham performed emergency first aid on Mr Davies after he saw the late-night confrontation on his way home from work on October 9.

Judge Peter Fox, sentencing Raper yesterday, branded it a cowardly attack and said: "It (the knife) seems to have been perilously close to breaking into one or another of the major blood vessels of that man. Had it done so, he would be dead."

Raper, of Grange Road, Darlington, had originally been charged with attempted murder but pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm.

Tom Mitchell, prosecuting, said Raper had been in a relationship with Lisa Godfrey, the mother of his child, but said they had recently separated and that she had begun seeing Mr Davies.

There was animosity between the men and two months before the attack, Raper told his former partner he was going to stab Mr Davies.

Mr Mitchell said that on the day of the attack, Ms Godfrey and the victim spoke to the defendant outside the hostel he was staying in.

He said: "At first, he declined to come down. When he did emerge, he was carrying a kitchen knife with a 7in blade.

"There was shouting and bad language. The defendant set about the complainant using his fists, hitting him about the head.

"Mr Davies went to the ground and tried to get up, but Raper continued to attack him.

"At some stage, Paul Davies was stabbed in the neck."

Graham Reeds, for Raper, said his client had had a hard life and that his father had been murdered.

Mr Cunningham was on his way home from work in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, when he saw the two men fighting. After stopping the fight, he found Mr Davies with the knife sticking out of his neck below the right ear.

Speaking outside court, he said: "I felt obliged as a police officer to tell them to pack it in. I did not see the knife at first as the injured party had quite long hair.

"My main concern at the time was when he pulled it out of his neck. In basic first aid, you are told to leave it in.

"It really started bleeding, I had a handkerchief, but that became bloodsoaked very quickly, so I just applied pressure. I am just glad I got there when I did.

"It was not your average day, my wife and colleagues have told me to drive home by a different route.