A wife who shot dead her policeman husband as he slept could be free in months after appeal judges ordered a further cut in her prison sentence .

Kim Galbraith, 33, was originally jailed for life for the murder of her 37-year-old husband Ian but that was reduced to culpable homicide and she was ordered to serve 10 years.

However, appeal judges in Edinburgh have now ruled that was excessive and reduced the sentence further to eight years.

Galbraith was convicted in 1999 of murdering her husband with his own rifle in the family home in Furnace, Argyll.

Interests of justice

She maintained at her trial that she should have been convicted of the lesser charge of culpable homicide because of the mental and sexual abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of her husband.

She was found guilty, but her lawyers challenged a ruling that evidence of mental illness was required before an accused could be held to be not fully responsible for their actions.

They claimed the ruling was contrary to the interests of justice.

The jury rejected her plea but a special bench of appeal judges later overruled that, rewriting the law on diminished responsibility.

Galbraith could now be eligible for parole this January when she will have served half of the new sentence.