Anger over stab officer's release

A couple whose daughter was stabbed 96 times by her police officer husband say they are angry he is to serve "less than three weeks for every stab wound".

Graham Jones killed his wife Maria, 36, at the home they shared in Ingleby Barwick, Teesside, in 2004.

He was jailed for eight years in 2005 after admitting manslaughter but is to be freed in April next year under automatic early release rules.

Ron and June Phillips said his amount of time in prison was "unbelievable."

Mr Phillips said: "He has had her life and five years and five months on in April he will have a chance to come back to normality.

"In his activity he went down stairs and washed one knife off and went back up and carried on stabbing her when she was already dead.

Maria Jones was found with multiple stab wounds

"It is unbelievable and it works out less than three weeks a stab wound when he comes out."

Jones, better known as Ivor, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The 20-year veteran with Cleveland Police said he "snapped" in December 2004 when she taunted him about an affair.

Teesside Crown Court heard he took the knife and repeatedly stabbed her to the head, chest and torso as she slept in the spare bedroom.

The court was told that the mother-of-three was so afraid of her husband that she kept a knife under her pillow and had told friends he had threatened to kill her.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said the Criminal Justice Act 1991 provided for automatic release at the two-thirds point of the sentence for those serving four years or more.

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