Lynette White: Parole Board rules murderer Jeffrey Gafoor can be freed

One of Wales’s most notorious murderers can be freed from jail, the Parole Board has said.

Jeffrey Gafoor was handed a life sentence in 2003 after advances in DNA technology linked him with the 1988 murder of sex worker Lynette White, 20, who was stabbed more than 50 times at her docklands flat in Cardiff.

On Thursday, the Parole Board said: “After considering the circumstances of his offending, the progress made while in custody and the other evidence presented at the hearing, the panel was satisfied that imprisonment was no longer necessary for the protection of the public.”

According to a summary of the decision, at the time of his crimes Gafoor had a “willingness to use extreme violence”, “lacked emotional control” in stressful situations and had anger problems. He would also “ruminate about events and hold grudges against people”.

But the panel said his behaviour in prison had been “very good” and there was no evidence of violence in custody.

He had taken part in a number of programmes to address his behaviour, which had led to him being transferred to a lower security jail and included periods on day release, the parole papers said.

Gafoor was jailed for a minimum of 13 years after pleading guilty to murder when he was 38, confessing to stabbing Ms White with a knife after a row over £30.

The court case heard he attacked her in a “barbaric manner”.

The killing initially resulted in three innocent men being jailed in 1990 before their convictions were quashed on appeal in 1992, and reopening the case led police to Gafoor 11 years later.

A £30 million investigation, Britain’s biggest police corruption probe, was launched into whether 13 South Wales Police officers perverted the course of justice in manipulating evidence, but in 2011 a trial of eight officers collapsed when documents went missing.

Gafoor was cleared for release after his sixth parole review, meaning he has spent an additional eight years behind bars already.

He will be subject to a number of licence conditions on his release, including being ordered to live at a certain address, having to disclose any relationships he develops, wearing an electronic tag and abiding by a curfew.