A York killer boasted of "having got away with murder" within days of lying to the jury that acquitted him, Leeds Crown Court heard today.

Tang Hall drug dealer Jason Nicholas Wade, 29, wrote to his girlfriend, Simone Mariga, that he had invited his victim Wayne Nicholson to come to his home and how he had repeatedly stabbed him on the floor.

He also told a prison officer what he had done, said James Goss QC, prosecuting.

The jury heard Wade's account of how Mr Nicholson had tried to escape his killer by clinging to a coffee table and how Wade had shown him a knife, saying "he was going to be dead very soon".

Mr Goss also read out Wade's evidence at his trial for murder, which the prosecution say is significantly different.

Wade, formerly of Welborn Close, Tang Hall, and now serving a nine-year prison sentence for manslaughter, denies three counts of perjury.

He was acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation, and sentenced to nine years in prison on March 12 last year.

Mr Goss said that the following Tuesday, during exercise at Armley Jail, Leeds, he told Prison Officer Gary Hart how and why he stabbed Mr Nicholson.

He then invited the prison officer to read letters he had written to a friend, Jason Smith, then serving a prison sentence elsewhere, and his girlfriend, Miss Mariga.

"When he (the officer) returned to the office he read the letters from the defendant in which, in the course of boasting of having got away with murder, he gave an account of having stabbed Nicholson when he was sitting down in a chair. Then, when his victim was on the floor. he stabbed him in the chest twice more."

Mr Goss read out the letters, which Wade claimed to police were "all lies".

Wade wrote to his girlfriend: "Well, I had better tell the truth".

He went on: "I'm a little bit sick over the nine years.

"It's better than a life sentence, which I should have got."

Wade wrote that when Mr Nicholson arrived at his bungalow with another man, he had to send the second man away "as I couldn't kill them both".

He said he was shocked when Mr Nicholson "didn't die straight away", when he was stabbed.

In the letter to Mr Smith, he had claimed he would have got off completely if Mr Nicholson had died from that stab.

In the letter to his girlfriend he said that the victim did try to fight back, and "took a couple of mins to go down on the floor.

"I told him he was going to be dead very soon. With that he put his left arm under the black table, under the window, and wouldn't let go. I lifted the table up off the ground and the green ashtray rocked. With that I showed him the knife. I stabbed him in the chest twice more".

Mr Goss said Wade told police he had written the letters for three reasons.

He wanted to annoy the prison officers, a man called George Clements was bothering his family, and his girlfriend needed proof to show that she was not involved in the killing.

Mr Goss said that the jury will hear evidence from Miss Mariga that Mr Clements was not bothering the Wade family, and all her friends knew she was not involved in the killing.

The trial continues.