A JEALOUS father bludgeoned his wife to death with a paving hammer the day after he received a letter telling him she wanted a divorce.

Minutes before he attacked her in the living room of their home, Michael Luke, 45, also discovered that his wife, Johanna, was having an affair.

The attack took place as their ten-year-old son cowered upstairs.

Teesside Crown Court heard that Luke called 999 before ringing his brother to confess what he had done, and then went outside to have a cigarette.

The couple's son, Kieron, who had earlier witnessed a confrontation between Luke and his wife's lover, was hysterical and screaming.

Paul Ashton, the victim's brother-in-law, arrived at the house, in Priory Gardens, Willington, County Durham, to find Johanna slumped on the sofa and bleeding heavily.

He had received a call five minutes earlier from the mother-of-two asking him to come over.

Aidan Marron, prosecuting, said: "By the time he got there she was, if not dead, dying.

"She had been subjected to a flurry of blows to the head with a particularly heavy hammer, which produced extensive fractures to the head."

It is alleged that Luke told Mr Ashton immediately after the killing: "I have hit her with a hammer because she is having an affair."

The landscape gardener, who claims to have no recollection of the attack, admits responsibility for his wife's death, but denies murder.

The court heard the couple met in 1987, when Johanna was aged 19. After a brief romance, she discovered she was pregnant and they married.

Their daughter, Kimberley, was born in March 1988, and their son in 1995.

Mr Marron said: "From the very outset, their relationship was turbulent and volatile.

"Although as with most relationships there were happy times, argument and discord was never far from the surface.

"Michael Luke remained, throughout the relationship, possessive and jealous.

"He closely monitored her movements, he bombarded her with telephone calls when she was not with him. He accused her repeatedly of infidelity, some of which may have been true. He criticised her clothing and followed her from place to place."

The court heard that Johanna tried to split up with her husband many times but always gave him a second chance.

Two days before the killing, which happened on Sunday, August 28, last year, a solicitor wrote to Luke telling him his wife wanted a divorce and asking him to move out of the marital home.

The couple argued about the letter, and the next day Luke enlisted the help of a workmate to spy on Johanna.

He found her at the home of her lover, Mark Cole, who also lived in Willington, and confronted her on the doorstep before demanding that she returned home.

When she returned, the couple argued. Luke took a hammer from his van and hit her at least four times.

When arrested and interviewed by police, Luke said he could not remember what had happened.

Mr Marron said it was the Crown's case that Luke murdered his wife, but it was anticipated that the defence would allege that he killed her because he was suffering from an abnormality of the mind - a charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The trial continues.