A MAN who hospitalised his ex-wife in a frenzied knife attack after she left him, won the first round of an Appeal Court bid yesterday to overturn his life sentence.

Michael Whalley, 43, stabbed his ex-wife, Elaine, in the back as she walked to work, collapsing her lung -- the second time he had stabbed her during their stormy relationship.

Whalley, of Oban Drive, Blackburn, was jailed for life after he was convicted of wounding with intent at Bolton Crown Court on January 7, 1999.

But Mr Justice Jack yesterday gave him permission to appeal against the sentence after hearing submissions that the legislation under which it was imposed has since been overhauled.

The judge told how Whalley, who had already done time for grievous bodily harm after stabbing Elaine in the neck and strangling her in October 1972, had stabbed her in the back on August 7, 1998 after she refused to come back to him.

She was rushed to hospital with a collapsed lung, an injury which the trial judge described as life-threatening.

Kris Gledhill, for Whalley, told the judge that the life sentence had been imposed under the 1994 Crime Sentences Act, which dictated a mandatory life sentence for a second serious offence.

This legislation has now been reassessed by the Appeal Court so that judges also have to take into account the risk that the offender poses to the public at large, he said.

Mr Justice Jack, sitting with Lord Justice Clarke, granted Whalley leave to appeal the sentence, and adjourned the full hearing until a clinical psychologist's report assessing the danger that he poses can be obtained.