FRIENDS and family of a man who died in a stabbing are campaigning for a change in the law.

Nicholas Ormerod died aged 29 after being stabbed by homeless alcoholic Mark Haylock.

Haylock was jailed for only eight years earlier this month after being acquitted of murder but found guilty of manslaughter.

He had already served time on remand and could be free in three years if he behaves well in prison.

After the sentence, the jury heard of Haylock’s previous knife crimes – some of which could not affect the sentence because they were old enough to be spent convictions. The court heard of a robbery in 1999.

The petition, started by Nic’s mum Jane and promoted by his friend Chelle Miller, says convictions for offences involving weapons should never be considered spent.

Jane, who had known Nic since he was around 10 years old, said: “We’re trying to get as much local support as we can. I see Jane daily and we were talking about how you should never have to bury your child.

“I said it scares me what our children are growing up in,” she said.

Chelle was in court through the trial and tried to support Nicholas’s devastated parents.

“It’s really tough to see them going through it as well as grieving myself,” she said.

Nicholas, who lived with his parents in Cranleigh Road, Southbourne, had lived in Bournemouth all his life and worked as a roofer with his dad.

Chelle echoed Jane’s tributes to Nic. “He was an absolutely lovely, bubbly, friendly, loving person,” said Chelle.

“As Jane said, he had his ups and downs but he always came out the other side and was doing really well for himself.”

• JANE Ormerod’s e-petition says: “A conviction for a crime involving a weapon should never be classed as spent.

“These convictions should not be excluded from any other sentence given for a similar crime purely because its classed as spent.

“We require the law on this to be changed.”

It can be found at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/31824, or by visiting the Facebook page “Get justice for Nic Ormerod”.

• CRIMINAL convictions where the sentence is less than two-and-a-half years in prison eventually become ‘spent’.

That puts the offender back in the situation they would have been if the offence had never been committed.

The offender will not normally have to reveal the conviction once it is spent and it cannot usually be revealed by anyone else without the subject’s permission.