Killer's life sentence is 'error'

Police say Sarah Jane Coughlan died from stab wounds

A man who killed his wife and then murdered a prostitute 17 years later should not have been jailed for life, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

George Leigers, 48, was convicted last April of murdering Sarah Jane Coughlan at his Middlesbrough flat.

Leigers denied murder but claimed the killing was manslaughter by diminished responsibility, but the defence was not accepted by the jury.

But top judges have now ruled he should serve a minimum of 21 years 172 days.

After this, he would become eligible to be considered for release on licence.

Body hidden

The trial last year at Teesside Crown Court heard Leigers spent 16 years in a secure mental health unit and home for the chronic mentally ill after he was convicted over his wife's death.

He had only been free for six months when he killed 19-year-old Ms Coughlan.

Leigers stabbed her with a bayonet at his home on Montrose Street in August 2003.

He left her body hidden under a duvet on his bed and five days later he surrendered to police in Inverness.

The trial judge told Leigers that for the public's safety the life sentence had to mean life.

But Judge Findlay Baker QC at the Court of Appeal said the trial judge was in error in basing his decision on the danger posed by Leigers.