A MAN who stabbed his wife repeatedly after she told him their near 40-year marriage was over has been jailed for three years.

Bus driver Barry Moore, 60, was described by witnesses as ranting and raving, and like a man possessed, as he stabbed his estranged wife, Marie, with a vegetable knife.

The attack, in Crook, County Durham, near the town's busy Market Place, happened when the pair had met to discuss their separation.

Yesterday, at Teesside Crown Court, Moore, who had previously admitted unlawful wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm, was jailed by Judge Tony Briggs for the attack - despite pleas from his defence counsel for leniency.

Moore, of Heather Lane, Crook, said he was carrying the vegetable knife so he could scrape chewing gum off his shoes, but the judge said that his hostile intent was obvious.

Peter Johnson, prosecuting, said Mr and Mrs Moore had been married for 37 years, but separated with Mrs Moore moving to live with her aunt.

Mrs Moore suffered six separate wounds to her stomach and cuts to her arms, but fortunately none of the blows penetrated her abdomen, nor any vital organs.

Moore, who handed himself into police, said the final straw had been when his wife told him she wanted half of the matrimonial assets.

Jamie Hill, for Moore, said he was a decent, hard-working man who had lost control for a few seconds.

Moore, who is to be divorced by his wife, received several character references from friends and family.

But Judge Briggs said the courts would not countenance attacks of this kind in public and said three years was the least sentence he could pass.