A WIDOW whose husband was stabbed to death just months after being released from prison says he had “turned his life around” before he was killed.

Lenny Kempley died aged 54 on July 17 after being stabbed 12 times by Ross Flynn in Downham Way, Downham, following a brawl between the two in a pub car park earlier in the evening.

Flynn, aged 27, of Brockman Rise in Bromley, was jailed for seven years at the Old Bailey on December 6 after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Martin Heslop, representing Flynn, told the court Mr Kempley had returned to the pub after the fight to look for Flynn before finding him in Downham Way and stabbing him twice before Flynn stabbed him.

Mr Kempley’s widow Tracey says the fight in the pub car park began because some of Flynn’s friends hit her during the pub brawl earlier in the evening.

Mrs Kempley, aged 52, who still lives in the house she shared with Mr Kempley in Edward Tyler Road in Grove Park, said: “We came home after the pub and Lenny was angry because I’d been beaten up.

“He said he was going out to get cigarettes but he never came back, and I never saw him again.”

Mr Kempley had been released from prison eight months before he was killed, after serving an 18 year sentence for attempted robbery and making use of a firearm with intent to resist arrest.

Mother-of-three Mrs Kempley said: “Lenny had turned his life around. He was like a father to my children, and would do anything for me. He was a good man.”