A KILLER who stabbed a Huddersfield prostitute to death because she was pestering him for a cigarette has had his minimum jail term cut.

Shayne Haynes, 23, won a three-year reduction in the time he must serve behind bars when he went to the Appeal Court.

Haynes skewered 40-year-old Geraldine Brocklehurst straight through the neck with a large kitchen knife, then stabbed her three more times after she followed him asking for a smoke.

The attack took place in Lower Fitzwilliam Street on October 4 last year.

Miss Brocklehurst bled to death from a severed jugular vein.

Haynes, of Corby Street, Fartown, was jailed for life after pleading guilty to murder when he appeared at Bradford Crown Court on February 29.

A 16-year minimum term, or “tariff”, was set before he could be considered for parole.

But Lord Justice Toulson, Mr Justice Andrew Smith and Judge John Rogers QC, sitting at London’s Criminal Appeal Court, cut the tariff to 13 years.

The court heard that Haynes, who had a previous conviction for carrying a knife, was drunk and had smoked two joints of cannabis before leaving the house he shared with his mother and younger brother.

He told police he armed himself with a large knife for self defence after being the victim of an attack in the street previously.

Miss Brocklehurst and another prostitute were working in the town’s red light area and the other woman had asked Haynes of he “fancied a bit of fun” as he walked by them.

Haynes ignored her but Miss Brocklehurst followed him and asked him for a cigarette.

It was then that Haynes pulled out the knife and stabbed her four times, inflicting fatal injuries.

“This level of violence was unexplained,” said Lord Justice Toulson.

“A woman at night says something which irritates him. Instead of just walking off, he launches a lethal attack.”

But allowing his appeal, he said the Crown Court judge had been wrong to take a 20-year starting point when setting Haynes’ tariff, before reducing it for mitigation. The starting point he should have worked from was 15 years, ruled Lord Justice Toulson.

“A proper balance between the aggravating and mitigating features does not, in our view, lead to a minimum term of 16 years but to one of 13 years,” the appeal judge concluded.