Notorious 'Scissor Sister' killer Linda Mulhall has been released from jail after serving a 15-year sentence for manslaughter in one of Ireland's most notorious criminal cases.

Linda (42) walked free from the women's Dochas Centre prison on Tuesday after she refused temporary release over the Christmas period.

She is believed to be based in Dublin but the authorities have not been given an address for the convicted killer.

It is understood that Tallaght woman Linda was let out of prison at least a week before her planned release date.

Butchering

Linda had been locked up since 2005, serving a manslaughter sentence for brutally butchering her mother's lover Farah Swaleh Noor, in one of the most infamous cases in our history.

Her younger sister Charlotte Mulhall is serving a life sentence for the gruesome murder.

Along with Charlotte (33), Linda chopped up Kenyan Noor at her mother's home at Richmond Cottages, Ballybough, north Dublin, in 2005.

She admitted hitting him "a good few times" on the head with a claw hammer, while Charlotte stabbed the 36-year-old up to 20 times with a kitchen knife.

The women spent hours sawing up his body in the bathroom.

They then dumped his limbs and torso in the Royal Canal before taking his head on the bus to Tallaght, where it was hidden in a park before being moved.

While serving her jail time, it emerged that Linda had been in a romantic relationship with a male prison worker.

Last November, it was also revealed that Charlotte had been involved in a romantic relationship with a separate prison worker.

Sources say that while Linda might struggle to adapt to life on the outside, her situation is far better than this time last year, when she suffered a broken arm and severe facial injuries in a bizarre prison incident.

The convicted killer spent 13 hours receiving emergency treatment in hospital for her injuries after she fell into a press when locked into her en-suite room in the Dochas Centre.

It is understood that Linda suffered the injuries after becoming "dizzy". It is not known if she had been on drugs at the time.

Linda's behaviour in jail over the past seven years has been described as "excellent" by jail insiders and she has not received a P19 disciplinary report since 2010, when she refused to take a saliva test.

This is in stark contrast to her earlier behaviour, when she was disciplined for breaking jail rules around a dozen times between 2007 and 2009.

These were for a wide variety of offences, including fighting with other inmates and being caught with a mobile phone and a charger.

Linda and Charlotte's murder trial in 2006 was a national sensation because of the gory evidence that was presented to a shocked courtroom.

Grotesque

The now-deceased judge, Mr Justice Paul Carney, who passed sentence on the sisters in December 2006, described the violent death of Noor as "the most grotesque case of killing" that he had experienced in his professional lifetime.

In her statement to gardai, Linda said that she was on Charlotte's lap in the sitting room listening to a CD when Noor came in and put his arm around her waist.

He had been earlier making threatening gestures at the sisters' mother Kathleen Mulhall, who was later jailed for five years for cleaning up the murder scene.

Kathleen asked Noor: "What the f**k are you doing?"

Linda recalled: "Farah kept saying, 'You're so like your mammy'."

Linda said that Charlotte was telling Noor to get his hands off her, and then her sister picked up a Stanley knife and cut his throat.

Herald