THE mother of a man knifed five times by Mark Hobson insisted he should have been jailed for the attack which left her son fighting for his life.

Hobson repeatedly stabbed love rival William Brace with a butterfly knife in front of horrified shoppers, but escaped a prison sentence when the case went to court a year later.

Mr Brace, a father of two, suffered a punctured lung in the savage day-time attack in Selby, in March, 2002.

The men had clashed outside an off-licence on the town's busy high street after Brace confronted Hobson over rumours he had slept with his 17-year-old girlfriend.

But Hobson walked free from York Crown Court in February 2003 after admitting wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

He was sentenced to 100 hours' community work and two years' probation after claiming he acted in self-defence.

Twelve months later he would murder his girlfriend, Claire Sanderson and her twin sister Diane and bludgeon elderly couple James and Joan Britton to death.

Mr Brace's mother, Margaret, of Denilson Road, Selby, said she was angered that Hobson was never jailed for the attack which nearly killed her son.

"William was in intensive care and doctors said he was lucky to be alive.

"There was talk of Mark getting four or five years, but the sentence he got was disgusting and made me very angry," she said.

Updated: 13:54 Tuesday, April 19, 2005