A FORMER pub owner stabbed his wife with a bayonet after she confessed to having an affair with two men, a court has heard.

Paul Green, of Main Road, Marlesford, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Sharon Green at their home between November 19 and 20 last year.

Standing in the witness box, Green turned to his son sitting in the public gallery and, fighting back tears, told him: “I will tell the truth.”

Giving evidence on the fourth day of his trial, Green said: “I never would have thought she would have been unfaithful to me, until she told me.”

The day before Mrs Green was stabbed to death, Green said he found a poem she had written to Steven Pye.

Earlier in the trial, it had been suggested Green killed his wife because he believed she was having an affair with Mr Pye, a thatcher from Bramford, who had been working on their roof.

The last line of the poem said: “I love you, but I love my husband more.”

Green said he woke at around 4.30am on November 20, the day he killed his wife.

After logging on to his computer, he discovered what he described as a dating website with pictures of cupid figures. He said that prompted him to want to ask his wife if she had been contacting Mr Pye on the computer.

The court had previously heard Green had called Mr Pye’s assistant Stuart Dunnett two days before Mrs Green’s body was found to ask him to stop contacting his wife.

Green had been monitoring his wife’s phone at the time to check if Mr Pye was calling her, it was heard.

As Green made his way to the couple’s bedroom, he climbed the stairs, picking up a Second World War bayonet with a 10-inch blade.

He said: “I don’t know why I picked it up. I put it up my sleeve. I didn’t want to frighten her. I was only going to ask her a question. I still don’t know why I picked it up.”

As he entered the room and asked his wife if she had been contacting Mr Pye, Green said she told him she had been having sex with the thatcher for six months after seducing him.

He claims she also told him she had been having a two-year affair with a family friend Stephen Foster. Both men denied having an affair with Mrs Green.

Green said the last words his wife said were: “I go through the motions with you.”

Green said: “I remember stabbing her. I remember I stabbed her. She tried to stop me with her hands.

“I went to stab her the first time, the second time I thought you (Mrs Green) might be in pain.

“All the other stabbings, I can’t remember nothing, I just remember them two.”

When asked by his barrister Brian Reece what he was feeling at the time, Green said the words “trust and loyalty” were going through his head.

Leaving his wife’s body on their bed, Green left the house, burning the poem Mrs Green had written to Mr Pye on route.

Crying as he spoke, Green added: “I thought I had killed my wife, my kids’ mum. I thought I would kill myself.”

He recalled driving at around 110mph towards trees in a field at the side of the A12.

When he came to and realised he had failed in his bid to kill himself, he said he got out of his car with the intention of throwing himself in front of a lorry.

Police arrested him and took him to Ipswich Hospital where Green denied telling a student nurse he had argued with his wife, which was why he stabbed her.

When cross-examined by Gerard Pounder, Green said he has no reason to lie.

He said: “She (Mrs Green) killed me as well.

“I know you think I took the knife to kill her, but no. I have no reason to lie, my kids are over there. I have told the truth.

“I am not interested in a lighter sentence. I killed my wife and lost my family, I don’t want to come out.”

The trial continues.