A MAN was today starting a seven-year jail sentence for stabbing a man he wrongly believed to be the new lover of his former wife.

York Crown Court heard Sean Finnegan was "gobsmacked" when ex-wife Jane told him she had had a "one-night stand" with someone else and swore to find out who it was.

But, said prosecutor David Bradshaw, the man into whose chest Finnegan plunged a knife - narrowly missing his heart - after following him into a toilet cubicle at the Devonshire Arms public house in Harrogate on January 27, was not responsible.

Mr Bradshaw said victim, Peter Foster, had not spent any night with Jane Finnegan, but named the "culprit" as David Hague, a close friend of Mr Foster's.

Finnegan, 41, of Newby Crescent, Harrogate, who had denied wounding Mr Foster with intent to do him grievous bodily harm, was told by Judge Peter Charlesworth: "I have no doubt you followed him intending to stab him, and you did. You had gone out with a knife and used it to cause serious injury."

Witnesses told the five-day hearing that Finnegan still loved his wife after their divorce in July, 1990.

The jury heard that on the day of the stabbing Mr Foster had been drinking with Mr Hague and that Finnegan had followed him from pub to pub. When Mr Foster went to the toilet in the Devonshire he was followed in by Finnegan.

After he left Mr Hague found his friend with a stab wound in the chest from which blood was oozing.

Updated: 10:27 Saturday, August 18, 2001