A lawyer who is on trial for the murder of his wife spoke today of how his mentally ill wife would often fly into a violent rage and attack him.

But despite suffering years of abuse, Richard Davies Jones, 33, insisted that he had never hit her back, even when she grabbed his testicles and attacked his mother.

Last December he was found slumped across his dead wife, who had died from a stab wound to her throat, in the snow outside their home in Ashtead.

Mr Davies Jones, who also had a knife wound to his neck, denies murder and claims that his wife stabbed him before fatally stabbing herself.

Giving evidence from the dock at the start of the defence case, he told the jury about the couple's often abusive relationship, with the police regularly called to their home after reports of violence.

He said that a row in 2005, while the couple had been living in Kingston, had escalated to the point where he was arrested after Mrs Davies Jones falsely claimed he had cut her face.

He said: "I later found she had barricaded herself into the house, had threatened to set the dogs on the police and taken an overdose that was so serious she was put on life support.

"She then reported that all the allegations weren’t true."

In a separate incident the jury heard how Mr Davies Jones had found his wife sitting in the bathroom cutting her arms and legs in view of their two small children.

He said: "They were pretty disturbed.

"I couldn’t help her and keep the kids away so I called the ambulance.

"Laura had locked herself into the bathroom.

"They asked me to persuade her to come out.

"She just flew straight at me and punched me full in the face in front of seven police men.

"She was then dragged out with police officers on each of her limbs."

On another occasion, Mr Davies Jones told the court how one evening Mrs Davies Jones had come home drunk and had physically abused him and his mother.

He said: "She went into a rage and hit me and then she grabbed my testicles.

"I fell to the floor in a fair amount of pain.

"My mother had heard this going on and had tried to stop Laura kicking me on the floor.

"Laura then kicked my mother in the chest.

"My mother went and called an ambulance because she was in a lot of pain and was having difficulty breathing."

At one point Mr Davies Jones recalled his wife's threats that she was going to kill him.

He said: "At one point she had a knife and she was saying things but I didn’t believe her.

"It was something she threatened many times before.

"She occasionally pressed the point of a knife into my stomach but just pressing it there.

"She never actually rammed it in.

"But I didn’t believe her."

Mr Davies Jones also made clear that there were many other occasions that went unreported.

He said: "It was just a matter of Laura punching me or throwing a shoe at me or scratching me.

"It wasn’t something I was going to go running to the police about."

After years of violence and self-harm Mrs Davies Jones was sectioned under the mental health act in 2005 and diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

Mr Davies Jones said: "I had an understanding that this wasn’t just Laura being moody but it was an illness she had being diagnosed with.

"I read all the material I could find on the internet."

Their turbulent relationship continued despite Mrs Davies Jones discovering that her husband had been having an affair with a class mate at the Guildford College of Law - allegedly by hacking into his facebook account by hiring a Venezuelan organisation.

While finding the affair difficult to forgive, the couple had reconciled but Mr Davies Jones told the court how his wife would often throw the affair in his face and had told the couple’s two young boys that, "daddy likes sleeping with a n****r".

In court, Mr Richard Davies Jones also refuted claims made by Mrs Davies Jones to her mother, witness Celia Dakin, that he had held Laura down by the throat.

He said: "Every allegation that Laura made of me committing violence against her was untrue."

He continued: "I have never once hit Laura, scratched Laura deliberately, slapped her or pulled her hair.

"The only thing I have ever done is held onto her wrists if she was trying to hit me.

"I have pushed her away but merely in self defence.

"That’s all I have ever done."

The trial continues.