LITTLE could have prepared police officers for the horrific scene they were to discover when a call came on the morning of December 2 to attend an incident at the Ingleby Barwick home of PC Ivor Jones.

Earlier, the 40-year-old had carried out a frenzied attack on his wife, Maria, in the spare bedroom of the couple's home at 4 Barwick Close, stabbing her repeatedly to her front, back and arms.

She had started sleeping in the spare room after their relationship had soured.

At 6.48am, the attack over, he telephoned his sister, Debbie Robertson, to arrange for their three children, who had been sleeping in another bedroom, oblivious to the attack, to be taken away.

Jones told her: "Come and get the boys, I have done it."

At 7.06am, he called another of his sisters, Diane Jones.

She rang 999 after he hung up and, at 7.50am, colleagues of his from Cleveland Police arrived; men he had worked with day in and day out over the years.

In the bedroom, they found Mrs Jones, dressed in a T-shirt and pants, lying across the bed where she had been attacked.

She had been stabbed 96 times, including at least four times in the heart. Many of the wounds were so deep that they could have caused her death on their own, making it impossible to say which was the fatal blow.

Police believed the most likely scenario was that she was attacked while in bed, but was in all likelihood awake and having a conversation when her husband struck.

She would have had little opportunity to fight back against the violent blows that rained in on her. PC Jones was found lying on top of her body -face to face.

As a result, he and his clothes were heavily stained with her blood.

Police found a kitchen knife with a 5in blade -the one most likely used in the attack -under a pillow on the bed.

Other knives, found with diluted blood on them, were in the kitchen, although there was nothing to link them with the injuries sustained by Mrs Jones.

Her wedding ring and other jewellery was found stained with blood within the folds of the duvet.

Amid the carnage, it is thought PC Jones had tried to take his life by swallowing sleeping tablets and drinking red wine.

After being arrested, he was taken to hospital, where he asked police: "Did I kill her? I must have done as I was the only person there."

Detective Chief Superintendent Brian Dunn, of Cleveland Police, said: "This was an extremely difficult situation, certainly for the first officers at the house, who were confronted with a dreadful scene in the bedroom -the worst I have seen in my 25 years' experience.

"Then, on top of that, was the realisation that they had to arrest a serving police officer.

"Maria Jones was repeatedly stabbed about her body and I hope Ivor Jones will spend a lot of his time in custody thinking about exactly what he has done."

Jones was taken into custody when he was released from hospital. When questioned, he gave detectives a lot of detail about events leading to the attack, but was very vague about details of the stabbing, saying he could remember little.

His version of events was quickly declared unsafe by medical experts, and only one formal interview between detectives and Jones ever took place.

The outcome was that he was charged with murder, which he denied, instead he admitted the lesser charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Until yesterday, he was in the care of the Hutton Unit at Middlesbrough's St Luke's psychiatric hospital, but has now begun his eight-year jail sentence.

Police pinpointed three events that turned PC Ivor Jones from a hard-working, family man into a vicious killer.

First, there was the realisation that Maria was having an affair with another man in the months before her death.

Second, his father, Graham, a retired police officer, had died after a fall at a nursing home in September.

With Jones suffering from a depressive illness, he also faced a child abuse investigation that went to court.

He was cleared of all allegations when a judge ordered a not guilty verdict on the grounds that the case could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Prior to these events, Jones and his wife, along with her 13-year-old son from a previous relationship, and their two boys, aged nine and ten, had led a seemingly happy life. They had been together for 13 years and were married in August 1997.

The marriage was his second, having divorced his first wife in 1990. They had two children, now in their 20s.

A Cleveland police officer since July 1986, Jones was said to be well-respected in his job and had, in 1991, received a district commander's commendation for his actions in dealing with a large-scale disturbance that led to the arrest of more than 20 people.

Although never formally promoted to sergeant, he had spent five years as an acting sergeant while working for the force.