A WARRINGTON businessman who was jailed for 20 years in France for the murder of his millionaire fiancée has been freed after serving less than two years of his sentence.

Former Culcheth High School pupil Ian Griffin was found guilty in December 2014 of murdering 36-year-old Kinga Legg after her body was found in the bathroom of the couple’s suite at the £1,000-a-night Hotel Le Bristol in Paris.

The Polish-born businesswoman, who was the owner and director of Vegex which exported tomatoes to McDonald’s and several British supermarkets, was found lying naked in the bathtub in May 2009.

She had suffered 100 injuries including 17 to the head and 33 to the thorax.

The hotel room was destroyed with radiators ripped from the walls as well as 18th century furniture and vases smashed to pieces.

It was previously reported how the day before hotel staff discovered her body Griffin fled the hotel in his black Porsche 911, which was recovered by police at the home of his parents Janet and Bernard on Delph Lane, Winwick.

Griffin was found by Cheshire Police around two weeks after her death living rough in a tent in woods at Farmwood Pool in Macclesfield.

The now 47-year-old was extradited to France in 2011 after initially refusing to give his consent when he appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court.

During the five-day trial in 2014, Griffin said he was suffering memory loss and was unable remember the evening his partner was killed due to the alcohol and anti-depressants he had consumed.

The pair had been making their way to Monaco with the intention of marrying, but Griffin was also seeing entrepreneur Dragons’ Den contestant Tracy Baker.

Griffin, who used to run tanning salons and gadget shops across the north west, had his sentence reduced by six years following an appeal in April but it has emerged that Griffin been released from prison.

According to national media a French judge reportedly ordered his release during a closed hearing in October.