A MURDERER jailed for life in 2000 after stabbing his former drinking buddy in the street will be free to apply for parole in five years.

John Thomas Kay, 39, was jailed for life in July 2000 after admitting the murder of Darren Roberts, then 38, in an ambush on Tower Street.

But his 14-year sentence has been reduced by 12 months at the High Court making him eligible for parole in 2013 due to time served. But Kay could still be refused parole by the Parole Board.

Mr Justice Lloyd Jones, who reviewed the case in London last week, reduced Kay’s minimum 14-year jail term after hearing the killer was involved in the heroic rescue of a prison guard.

In January 2000, Kay, of Dawley Flats, waited outside a house on Tower Street, where the men had been drinking with friends. Kay then stabbed Mr Roberts in the stomach with a knife he took from the kitchen, after the pair had a ‘minor disagreement’.

Manchester Crown Court heard that Kay and Roberts had been ‘friends for years’ but grew apart and had settled their differences with their fists on several previous occasions.

Mr Roberts’ official address was in Rochdale, though he spent much of his time at Dawley Flats. On this occasion, it was said that Kay had had a ‘perverse reaction’ to the way Roberts was treating his brother.

Mr Jones said: "In the late evening of January 5, 2000, the defendant and the deceased, Darren Roberts, had spent some time together in the house of a witness on Tower Street, Heywood. The defendant and his brother had left the house and waited for the deceased to join him."

The judge said that Kay had armed himself with a kitchen knife and stabbed Roberts in the stomach. Roberts then left his victim ‘dead or dying’ in an alleyway by the side of the house.

The knife was later found in St James’ graveyard.

Mr Justice Jones said that Kay had made good progress behind bars, saying there had been an incident in prison in which he ‘acted with considerable bravery and at personal risk to himself in assisting a prison officer who came under attack’.

He said: "In my judgment, this is a matter which should be taken into account in reviewing the minimum term. I consider that the minimum period should be reduced to one of 13 years."