A HEN-PECKED man who was nagged for 30 years before he stabbed his partner to death has been jailed for four years and eight months.

Dennis Long, 59, was cleared of murder and convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation after a trial at Newcastle Crown Court.

He killed 60-year-old grandmother Judith Scott, who he had lived with for three decades, after years of abuse.

On the night in March that he snapped at their home in North Shields, North Tyneside, she had called him weak, a pansy and a poof, and told him she should wear trousers and he should be in a dress.

He stabbed her in the arm and twice in the chest. She died at the scene.

Immediately after the attack, he rang 999 and said: “I just lost it – she gave me grief so I knifed her.”

During their relationship, she repeatedly beat him with an ornamental poker, nagged him and even broke his thumb, the court heard.

Judge John Milford said: “You are a placid, unassertive, rather weak man.”

The judge said the killing was against a background of 30 years of severe conduct by the deceased.

Ms Scott’s daughters, Kerry and Paula, both said they could not hate their stepfather for the killing.