A DEPRESSED man who stabbed a former work colleague he suspected of spreading rumours about his wife had his jail term slashed on appeal by top judges.

Usually mild-mannered Kenneth Jenkins, 62, stabbed former workmate, Anthony Friendship, twice in the toilet of the Rising Sun pub, in Woodcroft, near Chepstow, after "something snapped" inside him one night in March last year.

Mr Friendship was left with a 12cm-deep wound which caused a laceration to his spleen.

Retired hotelier Jenkins, of Innerloop Road, Beachley, Chepstow, was jailed for six years at Gloucester Crown Court on February 24 after being convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

However, Lord Justice Moore-Bick, Mr Justice Kenneth Parker and Judge James Goss QC, sitting at London's Criminal Appeal Court, cut that term to four and a half years.

The court heard that Jenkins was suffering from depression and the side effects of prescription medication at the time of the attack which had left him "confused, with heightened aggression and some disinhibition."

While enjoying a quiet drink with his wife, Jenkins spotted his former work colleague entering the pub.

"For a year or more he belived Mr Friendship had been spreading rumours about his wife. Something snapped and he attacked Mr Friendship," Judge Goss said.

Asking for a cut in his sentence, lawyers for Jenkins told the judges he was "a very sick man who was teased unmercifully by several people."

The side effects of his medication had "changed him completely," it was argued.

Judge Goss agreed that the sentence was too long, concluding: "Insufficient weight was given to the mitigating factors, the lack of premeditation, the depression and the effects of the medication. The appropriate sentence was one of four and a half years imprisonment."

Jenkins' wife Rose who sat in the public gallery wept with joy when the decision was announced and thanked the appeal judges.