A WIFE who plunged a kitchen knife into her husband's chest after a night out at the bingo was spared jail yesterday.

Judith Doyle, 54, had drunk five pints when she started rowing with her husband, Michael, over his lack of help with the decorating.

Newcastle Crown Court heard how Mr Doyle, who had been married to his wife for 33 years, had not wanted to become involved in a confrontation, so made his way to bed.

But Stephen Duffield, prosecuting, told the court how she stabbed him in the chest as he lay sleeping, wounding him just under the left nipple.

After Doyle's arrest, her husband tried to pursuade police to drop the charges and did not want his wife to end up in court.

He refused to give evidence against her if the case came to trial.

But Doyle, of Bernard Shaw Street, Houghton-le-Spring, Wearside, yesterday admitted unlawful wounding.

Defence barrister Michael Hodson told the court how she has a long history of depression and started drinking excessively after the death of her son, Peter, in 1998.

Psychiatrists said Doyle, who was supported at court by her husband and their two grown up children, was suffering from a number of psychiatric disorders at the time of the attack, on July 21.

Judge Tony Lancaster told her: "Stabbing in a domestic setting usually calls for a substantial term of imprisonment."

But he said he was satisfied that the incident was out of character - given her lack of previous convictions - and was contributed to by her excessive drinking and poor state of mind.

She was sentenced to a community rehabilitation order for two years, but the judge added the condition that she must receive psychiatric treatment.