LEROY Griffiths - jailed for murdering a man in Addingham in 2002 - is to be released and deported back to Barbados this weekend, it has been reported.

Twenty-one year old Mark Webster was stabbed in the chest with a kitchen knife by chef Griffith, as he tried to intervene in an incident outside The Fleece pub in Main Street on April 1, 2002. Griffith, who denied murder, was found guilty in Leeds Crown Court in December, 2002 and handed a minimum tariff of 14 years in prison.

Mark's father Tim Webster campaigned for Griffith, who is originally from Barbados, to be deported should he be released from jail. Mr Webster had the support of former Keighley and Ilkley MP Kris Hopkins who also said Griffith should never “set foot in Ilkley ever again”.

Now the BBC has reported that Griffith is to be released this weekend and deported to Barbados, news which Mr Webster said he had mixed feelings about.

Speaking on camera to the BBC Mr Webster said: "To get him out of the country is good. For him to be a free man is not so good. My concern is, what will our system do to stop him getting back in again?"

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crimes in the UK should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them.

“ Anyone subject to a deportation order is banned from re-entering the UK.

“More than 6,100 foreign national offenders were removed from the UK last year.”

The spokesperson added Mr Griffith has not previously been the subject of a deportation order and he was legally resident in the UK at the time of his conviction.

Speaking in 2012 Mr Webster said the pain of losing Mark never goes away and his family have struggled to come to terms with the tragedy.