AXE killer Jan Charlton has been released after serving 18 months of a sentence for killing her lover, a former Rossendale businessman.

The 37-year-old former escort girl walked free from Askham Grange Open Prison yesterday. And speaking on the doorstep of her parents' home in Middleton, near Manchester, she smiled and said: "I want to put everything behind me now." Charlton was jailed for the manslaughter of tycoon Daniel O'Brien, who used to live in Holme Terrace in the Townsendfold area of Rossendale before moving to West Yorkshire. She said: "I am happy to be out and I want to spend Christmas with my family. I'm looking forward to spending some quality time at home now. I just want to put everything behind me now and move on." Charlton killed Mr O'Brien by hitting him more than 20 times over the head and shoulders with a fireman's axe. He was discovered bound and gagged in the couple's master bedroom in their home in Midgley, West Yorkshire, in May 2001.

A murder trial was told that Charlton, wearing stockings and suspenders, bludgeoned him to death while her four-year-old daughter, Amy, played in the garden.

Charlton claimed she killed Mr O'Brien as he threatened to kill her and abuse her daughter. She was sentenced to five years in jail for the manslaughter but it was reduced to three-and-a-half years by the Appeal Court in London in February.