A drink and drug fuelled attacker who killed an innocent man in an assault at a pub has had his prison sentence slashed by a third by top judges in London.

Geoffrey Prestley Humphreys, 39, of Victoria Street, Hyde, was jailed for six years at Manchester Crown Court last March after he was found guilty of manslaughter.

At the Court of Appeal, he failed in a challenge to his conviction, but succeeded in winning a two-year cut in his jail term.

Sir Anthony May, sitting with Mr Justice Foskett and Mrs Justice Nicola Davies, said the six-year sentence was ‘excessive’ in the circumstances.

Humphreys had been drinking all day and had taken some cocaine when an altercation broke out at Stalybridge’s Grosvenor pub in January 2008.

He was asked by staff to help clear the pub and remained inside while the fight spilled into the street outside and the premises were emptied.

A group of people then tried to get back inside and Humphreys punched one man, David Grainger, twice in the face, causing him to lose consciousness.

Mr Grainger, from Ashton and who had not been involved in any of the drunken violence that night, choked on his blood and died.

After punching Mr Grainger, Humphreys then hit one of the man’s friends, Simon Harris, resulting in a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, which he admitted.

This week lawyers for Humphreys argued that he should never have been convicted, since there was not sufficient evidence to justify a guilty verdict.

Identification evidence had been ‘intrinsically unreliable’, with all witnesses intoxicated, except one woman who gave a description which pointed to another man as the more likely attacker.

Rejecting the argument, Sir Anthony said there was a ‘plain and sufficient’ case to go before the jury and the trial judge was right to allow them to make up their minds about Humphreys’ guilt.

But, since the offence was not the most serious of so-called ‘one-punch manslaughter’ cases, the six-year term was too long and would be cut to four years.

The decision means that Humphreys will serve only two years in jail for killing Mr Grainger, before being released into the community on licence.