A killer was jailed yesterday for nine years and seven months for fatally stabbing a soldier who returned home after surviving two tours of duty in Iraq.

Charles McBlain, 23, was celebrating Hogmanay in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, when he was stabbed by Graham Lennox with a martial arts butterfly knife. The Lance Corporal in the Royal Highland Fusiliers was killed after he went to check his cousin was safe after fighting broke out.

Lennox, 25, then stabbed the young soldier in the groin before running away. Mr McBlain, an only child, died in hospital after the knife attack despite efforts to resuscitate him. Lennox, from Saltcoats, was originally charged with the murder of Mr McBlain on January 1 this year, but the Crown earlier accepted his guilty plea to a reduced charge of culpable homicide.

The court heard Lennox repeatedly punched his victim before striking him with the knife. Lennox, who has a previous conviction for assault to severe injury and robbery, had also originally faced further knife assault charges.

Lady Dorrian told Lennox at the High Court in Edinburgh that he would have been jailed for 12 years for the killing, but for his guilty plea. The judge also ordered that he should be kept under supervision for a further four years for the protection of the public.

However, a friend of the victim - speaking on behalf of the family, including Mr McBlain's father Charles - said they felt let down by the sentence.

Thomas Latta, 24, said: "If you take a knife and use it and the person dies, that is murder, but he has pleaded guilty to culpable homicide. He is going to get out on the streets after less than five years, but Charles has lost a son and we have all lost a friend - yet in that time his Lennox's life will be back to normal."

Defence counsel Paul McBride, QC, said: "He knows, as a result of what he did, he ruined the lives of a number of people, including his own, and has taken a young man's life."