A MAN who stabbed another rough sleeper in a North park had his jail term reduced yesterday.

The victim said he had been woken up by pain in his back, before Dennis John Willoughby told him: "Sorry John, I have stabbed you."

Willoughby, 37, of no fixed address, was jailed for four years and nine months at York Crown Court last August, after pleading guilty to malicious wounding and having a bladed article.

London's Criminal Appeal Court yesterday concluded the sentence was wrong in principle and cut it to three years nine months.

Mr Justice Mitting, sitting with Lord Justice Rose and Mr Justice Walker, said the sentencing judge had imposed terms longer than normal because he correctly considered Willoughby posed a danger to the public.

But, he said, longer than normal sentences had to run concurrently rather than consecutively, as the judge had ordered.

The stabbing incident took place in June last year, when Willoughby and John Stamford were sleeping in the Spa Gardens, in Scarborough.

A pre-sentence report said Willoughby had an untreatable and major personality disorder, which was exacerbated by drug use. The risk of him violently re-offending was high.