A man who was wrongly jailed for murder but went on to take part in a violent robbery has had part of his £200,000 fortune seized.

Billy Friend has been ordered to pay almost £6,000 from money he received from the Home Office for the nine years he spent behind bars.

A judge ruled the amount should include just £500 for a £25,000 car stolen but recovered after a series of country house robberies.

Friend, 27, was jailed again - for 12 years - in August for his part in the robbery at Hailsham in 2006, although he was not violent. He and Billy Ripley held Matthew Gooch and partner Jessica Rocha hostage in their home.

Ripley, 24, repeatedly knifed Mr Gooch in the head and body, causing him to lose five pints of blood. Ripley was jailed indefinitely for causing him grievous bodily harm.

Friend prevented Mr Gooch from escaping and told the victim to "do himself a favour" and tell Ripley where his money was kept. At the time, Friend and Ripley were living at a caravan park in Maresfield.

Friend had also broken into a country house at Wilmington, near Polegate, while the owners slept just days before they robbed Mr Gooch.

The family's £25,000 Mercedes was taken. The car was recovered undamaged two days later, Hove Crown Court was told.

Katherine Hunter, prosecuting, asked for £30,494 of Friend's assets to be seized at a confiscation hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act yesterday.

She said the amount included the full value of the Mercedes even though it had been recovered undamaged.

Miss Hunter said Friend's assets included £189,000 in a trust fund controlled by Friend's mother and a solicitor for the Court of Protection.

She added: "The money was part of a payment awarded to him by the Home Office. A murder conviction was overturned on appeal after he had served nine years of his sentence."

Richard Griffiths, defending, said it would be wrong to include the full value of the Mercedes in the amount Friend was said to have benefited from crime.

Judge Cedric Joseph said: "It goes against the grain to say that he obtained a benefit of £25,000 while this car was missing.

"I am going to say that the benefit as far as the Mercedes was concerned was £500. The benefit obtained from criminal conduct in April and August 2006 amounts to £5,994.

"The money held in trust is free and available property and I make a confiscation order in the sum of £5,994."