When Stephen Hudson brutally murdered divorcee Christine Armstrong, he claimed he had strangled her through grief after seeing the face of his dead wife on hers.

Now, from his prison cell, the killer is suing doctors who he blames for causing the death of his wife Fiona.

Father-of-two Hudson was jailed for life in 1989 after strangling 41-year-old interior designer Miss Armstrong.

Her charred body was found in a shallow grave, discovered after Hudson confessed to police.

When he was cornered he told police he strangled her after seeing the face of his wife Fiona who had died of a heart attack aged just 27 only six months earlier.

He admitted strangling Miss Armstrong, but claimed manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, blaming extreme grief for causing the personality disorder.

The prosecution dismissed his claim as a sham and said he made up the story to cover his tracks when he was caught.

Yesterday, Hudson, 43, was back in the dock to claim damages against Sunderland Health Authority, which he blames for his wife's death.

At a hearing at Newcastle County Court he claimed that doctors sent his wife home with an indigestion pill and didn't realise she was having a heart attack.

The court heard how Fiona Hudson died in the early hours of August 5, 1998 after being sent home from hospital.

But she took ill in a taxi on her way home with her husband to Carrick Court, Sunderland, and had to be rushed back by ambulance.

Hudson claimed that staff had made his wife feel like a "burden".

Representing himself, the former plasterer told the court: "The nurse made my wife feel like she was a burden to that hospital with a complaint that was wasting hospital time.''

Sunderland Health Authority has denied incompetence in diagnosing Mrs Hudson's condition.

Dr George Steele, then senior house officer at the accident and emergency unit at the hospital, said Mrs Hudson had no apparent symptoms of having a heart attack.

He said: "I felt a heart attack was not the cause of her pain, I felt it was more likely that she had heartburn.

"She wasn't in constant pain and didn't display any of the symptoms of a heart attack.''

Hudson is seeking £80,000 damages over his wife's death, the grief of which he claims led him to murder Christine Armstrong in January 1989.

The pair had met less than a week earlier by chance when Hudson visited the showroom in Hetton-le-Hole, near Sunderland, where she was working as a bedroom designer.

A few days later, after a night out, he strangled her to death at her home in Woburn, Biddick Village, Washington.

The trial continues.