Outrage as footballer Joey Barton leaves prison and walks back into his £71,000-a-week job

After 74 days in jail for a savage, drunken attack, Joey Barton walked straight back into his £71,000-a-week footballing career yesterday.

But there was widespread dismay and anger at the apparent ease with which the 25-year-old thug is being allowed to resume his lucrative contract at Newcastle United.

Barton, looking dishevelled in a scruffy grey sweatshirt as he walked out of Manchester's Strangeways jail, served less than half of his six month sentence for assault after being released under the Government's controversial end of custody licence scheme.

Anyone given a jail sentence of less than 12 months is automatically released after serving half the sentence.

The licence scheme cuts that still further by allowing many prisoners serving between four weeks and four years to be freed up to 18 days earlier than their scheduled release date.

Last night Tory MP Philip Davies said: 'It is outrageous. Joey Barton and any other criminal dealt with by the courts should serve the sentence handed down to them in full.

'Releasing people from custody so early makes a mockery of the criminal justice system and it is why no one has any faith in it any more.

'It seems to work for the benefit of the criminal, rather than the law-abiding citizen, who is let down time and again.

'Many people would have lost their jobs for what he has done, he should be treated no differently simply because he is a Premiership footballer.'

Barton has been capped once by England and his manager at Newcastle, Kevin Keegan, has infuriated the club's owner and board - which had previously hinted that the player would be sacked - by saying the midfielder should be given a second chance.

Barton refused to comment yesterday when asked if he had any message for the Newcastle fans, many of whom have voiced their anger at his return on football websites.

Uncertain future: Joey Barton has been released from prison

The player had hoped to leave Strangeways unnoticed but, in farcical scenes, his father and a team of burly friends drafted in to distract the waiting photographers were forced to beg a passerby for help after the battery in Barton's £60,000 silver Range Rover was found to have gone flat.

They eventually managed to get the vehicle started with jump leads when a local agreed to let them use his Ford Fiesta to charge the battery up.

Barton had been expected to be freed earlier this month with an electronic tag but probation officers rejected his release because of the violent nature of the attack and because it was committed while he was on bail for another assault seven months earlier.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that the player had drunk ten pints and five bottles of lager when he launched the attack during a night out in Liverpool in the early hours of December 27 last year.

Horrific: Manchester City player Ousmane Dabo was brutally beaten by then-teammate Barton

Barton, from Huyton, Liverpool, was caught on CCTV knocking his unnamed victim to the ground, before straddling him and punching the man up to 20 times.

Moments later, the player attacked 16-year-old Jordan Spencer, punching him in the mistaken belief that the youth had assaulted his cousin.

At the time of the assault Barton was on bail for a separate training ground attack on former Manchester City colleague Ousmane Dabo, which left his victim unconscious and bleeding.

He is currently serving a four month jail sentence, suspended for two years, in relation to that attack.

He was also ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid community work, pay Dabo £3,000 compensation and court costs of £3,430.

Over the past 12 months more than 25,000 criminals have been set free early under the end of custody licence scheme and the Government has been forced to hand out £2.6million in extra benefits for housing and subsistence.

They have gone on to commit hundreds of offences during the period when they would have been behind bars, including one murder.