A TEENAGE girl who killed her mother's partner by plunging a knife into his neck has escaped jail.

The single wound inflicted by Sophie Holbrook upon Ken Embley, 34, cut one of his main arteries.

A court was told that at the time the teenager - then aged 16 - was suffering from an abnormality of the mind, known as an adjustment disorder.

A judge took the exceptional step, in all the circumstances, of sentencing her to a three-year community rehabilitation order.

Preston Crown Court was told that before the fatal stabbing, she had witnessed domestic violence involving previous partners of her mother over many years.

Holbrook, now 17, had pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter at an earlier hearing.

On Tuesday the judge partially lifted an order that had prevented her being named because of her age, but directed that her current address is not published.

The killing took place at her then home in Royds Street, Accrington.

Mr Embley died as a result of the stab wound delivered with a degree of force described as "at least moderate and probably severe".

Mr Michael Shorrock QC, prosecuting, said the relationship between Mr Embley and Susan Holbrook, the defendant's mother, was volatile, characterised by arguments, breaking up and being reconciled. He lived at a different address.

On the evening of 10 January this year the mother was drunk and went upstairs to lie on her daughter's bed where the teenager found her asleep.

Sophie Holbrook then stormed downstairs and, entirely without provocation, attacked Mr Embley by grabbing his face and kicking him. She left the home, but then returned to find Mr Embley as well as her mum in her room.

The defendant dragged him, probably biting his hand, and was by now in a violent temper, threatening him with her boyfriend. She went and took a knife from a kitchen drawer and went back upstairs where she inflicted the fatal blow. Mr Embley was found collapsed on a sofa and was pronounced dead after his arrival at hospital.

The teenager told police she had held the knife close to Mr Embley, threatening him, and indicated that the wound had been caused accidentally.

But the pathologist's view was that due to the passage of the knife cutting bone, it was difficult to sustain the argument that it was an accident.

Mr Nicholas Dean QC, defending, said she had not intended to harm Mr Embley, but rather to warn, shock and frighten him.

Her mother had suffered domestic violence at the hands of previous partners and her daughter had witnessed it.

He said: "Sophie would hide herself away, locking herself in her bedroom, her own private space. It was space invaded by her mother and Mr Embley on that date.

"Her intention that evening was that her mother and mother's partner should leave her room, leave her space, leave her alone. A struggle occurred between her and Mr Embley. It is a tragedy that the knife penetrated his neck and caused his death."

The court also heard that she was a vulnerable teenager who had since tried to take her life through an overdose.

In passing sentence, Mr Justice Holland said Holbrook had taken Mr Embley's life in a towering rage.

Apart from her bedroom, the rest of her home had been a place where people continually drank to excess and where violence occurred.

He told the defendant: "In those circumstances your bedroom was a place of sanctity, the one place where there was no drinking and no violence."

The sentence includes a six-month curfew and intensive supervision by the probation service.