A FATHER has admitted stabbing his partner to death as their two children slept upstairs.

Craig Sexton, 30, killed Lynda Lovatt, 29, in Defoe Avenue, South Shields, South Tyneside, on June 18, as their seven-year-old son and daughter, four, lay in their beds.

Sexton was originally charged with murder, but prosecutors at Newcastle Crown Court yesterday accepted his plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsiblity.

The court heard how Sexton had a history of mental illness and had even been assessed by medical staff on the day of the stabbing.

John Evans, prosecuting, told the court that medical evidence confirmed that at the time of the killing Sexton was suffering from anxious avoidant personality disorder - an abnormality of the mind.

Mr Evans said: "Doctors have satisfied themselves that at the time of the killing the defendant was suffering from an abnormality of the mind induced by disease.

"This is a depressive illness occurring against a background of anxious avoidant personality disorder.

"Doctors are of the opinion the defendant's mental responsibility for his actions at the time of Lynda Lovatt's death was substantially impaired by virtue of that abnormality of the mind."

Judge David Hodson adjourned sentence until January 21 for further medical reports.

Sexton, of Trinity Street, North Shields, North Tyneside, was remanded in custody in the meantime.