A lawyer on trial for the murder of his wife stabbed her in the throat after learning that she was planning to leave him, a court was told yesterday.

Guildford Crown court heard that Richard Davies Jones, 33, was found slumped on top of his wife, Laura, in the snow outside their home in Woodfield Lane, Lower Ashtead, on December 1 last year.

The 31-year-old mother of five and social worker who worked in Surrey and South London had been stabbed twice in the neck.

Mr Davies Jones, who pleaded not guilty to murder, had also been stabbed in the neck.

Mr Davies Jones dialled 999 at 2pm on the day of the stabbings and told the operator: “There’s been a stabbing.

“My wife stabbed me, I stabbed her.

“She’s not moving.”

Prosecutor, Heather Norton, said Mr Davies Jones later told police his wife had stabbed him in the neck with a knife in the kitchen before moving into the lounge, where he claimed she had jabbed herself in the neck with a knife.

Mr Davies Jones said that after that he could not remember anything until he found himself outside on top of his wife's blood spattered body.

Married in 2004, the couple had three children, their youngest born just six weeks before Mrs Davies Jones’s death.

She also had two children from a previous marriage.

The court heard the couple had a very turbulent marriage. Police had on several occasions been called to the couple’s property after allegations by one or the other about violence from their spouse.

The jury also heard Mrs Davies Jones had a history of self-harm with knifes and razor blades and had previously taken an overdose.

Earlier that year, Mrs Davies Jones had discovered her husband had been having an affair which she had found ‘hard to forgive’ and was intending to leave him on the afternoon of her death, the prosecutor said.

The prosecution also claimed that in the last six months she had complained her husband was making threats and that she was scared not only of what he might do to her but to himself.

In a text to Mr Davies Jones on November 26, she said: “You ruined everything.

“I cannot move forward with you.

“Thought I could.

“I’m even scared of you.”

Mrs Davies Jones’s mother, Celia Dakin, told the court: “She was afraid he was going to kill her.

“She told me that he threatened to kill all of them, crash the car and kill them all.

“He had been violent to her earlier in the year while she had been pregnant and that really scared her.

“She told me he sat on her chest with his hands around her throat.”

Prosecutor Norton said: “Knowing that his wife was intending to leave him he carried out the threat that she had feared and attacked and killed her.

“It was Laura Davies Jones acting in self defence, not the defendant.

“When he stated that he had stabbed his wife he was telling the truth.”

The trial continues.