A FARMER'S wife admitted killing her husband when she took the stand in her murder trial yesterday.

But Jayne Lovegreen, 34, of Greenfield Farm, High Etherley, near Bishop Auckland, County Durham, denies it was murder.

At the opening of her defence case, she was asked by her counsel Neil Davey: "Do you accept that you killed your husband?" She replied: "I did."

Mr Davey asked: "Do you accept that at least you are guilty of manslaughter?" Mrs Lovegreen said: "I am."

Before Mrs Lovegreen went into the witness box, a hushed Teesside Crown Court listened to recorded police interviews.

In them, she described how she took a kitchen knife to her estranged husband John's cottage at Baal Hill Farm, near Wolsingham, before stabbing him.

Mrs Lovegreen said she went to the cottage to pick up her daughter, also called Jayne, and took the knife because she believed her husband would try to physically restrain her.

During earlier read-out statements from police interviews, the court heard how Mrs Lovegreen had driven off towards Carlisle after the stabbing. On the way, she bought some paracetamol to kill herself. But she was found by police soon after taking the tablets.

In the witness stand, Mrs Lovegreen said she met John Lovegreen in 1984 at a Young Farmers' dance when she was 15, and he had been her first boyfriend.

Before they married in 1990, Mrs Lovegreen said they often rowed and the arguments were sometimes physical.

Their daughter was born in 1992, and a year later, the family moved to the run-down Greenfield Farm where they lived in a caravan while they did up the house.

Under the stress of long hours and financial hardship, she and her husband rowed repeatedly and Mrs Lovegreen claimed he would physically restrain her.

By 2002, Mr Lovegreen, 34, decided they should separate at a time when their daughter was on holiday and they agreed to tell her together when she returned.

When young Jayne got back, Mrs Lovegreen learned her husband had already told friends about their marriage break-up and another row erupted during which Mr Lovegreen grabbed her.

The prosecution claims Mrs Lovegreen killed her husband after learning he had started a relationship with another woman after their split.

She will be back in the witness box today.