A wife bled to death after she was punched, kicked, stamped on and repeatedly beaten with a walking stick by her husband, a court heard yesterday.

Patricia Dodds, 42, had suffered years of abuse at the hands of her husband, Thomas, before the fatal attack.

On December 13 last year, she suffered one beating too many and received a ruptured spleen, which caused her to slowly bleed to death.

Newcastle Crown Court heard how Thomas Dodds, 51, admitted attacking his wife, but denies the beating could have caused her death.

John Milford QC, prosecuting, told the court how the pair had been married for two years but had been in a "violent" relationship for about ten years.

On December 8 last year, the pair moved from their home in Shiremoor to a flat in Park Road, Wallsend, Newcastle.

However, when the landlord sent a workman to fit a cooker in their home on December 13, he found Dodds drunk and his wife lying on the sitting room floor.

Dodds, who denies manslaughter, told the workman that his wife was drunk and had injured herself after smashing his china cabinet.

The workman returned later and found Mrs Dodds still on the floor, covered with a duvet. She was moving and appeared still to be alive.

However, later that day Dodds went to his local fish and chip shop and asked them to call an ambulance, because his wife was dead. Paramedics arrived too late to save Mrs Dodds and found her lying on the floor, with bruises to her face and neck.

A post-mortem examination noted bruising across her body and cuts to her face, but her death had been caused by a ruptured spleen.

The court heard how Mrs Dodds was an alcoholic and had severe medical problems because of her drinking.

Mr Milford said the pair had had a violent relationship, during which several friends and family had witnessed Dodds beating his wife.

In interviews with police, Dodds denied he had beaten his wife that night and denied causing her death.

However, Mr Milford said: "The deceased was subjected to a sustained, violent assault, with multiple impacts to her body."

The trial continues