A retired nurse who stabbed her unfaithful husband with a vegetable knife has been given a suspended prison sentence.

Sentencing Kathryn O'Hara, who had been married to her husband for more than 40 years, Judge Emma Peters said she must have felt "an utterly humiliating sense of betrayal" when she discovered he'd been having an affair.

"You had a moment of dreadful stupidity and thankfully caused a limited amount of harm to your husband," said the judge.

The court heard that Douglas O'Hara suffered a 1-1.5cm wound to his abdomen and had put a plaster on it before going to the pub.

Simon Walters, prosecuting, said the defendant and her husband were now reconciled and he had declined to make a statement to the police or have his injury photographed.

On June 30 last year O'Hara had been preparing food in the kitchen of the marital home with a vegetable knife and there had been "heated words" about the affair, said Mr Walters.

Mr O'Hara left the kitchen and when he came back into the room there had been a "coming together" during which the knife his wife was holding came into contact with his abdomen.

The defendant, who had been drinking, got behind the wheel of her car and contacted police and was arrested.

She was later charged with drink-driving, as well as assaulting her husband.

O'Hara, 66, of Tudor Road, Sudbury, admitted an offence of wounding on June 30 last year.

She was given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months, a rehabilitation activity requirement of up to 20 days and ordered to pay £1,200 costs.

Steven Dyble, for O'Hara, said his client was the mother of two daughters and had been a theatre sister.

He said she and her husband had retired and had found it difficult to re-adjust to their new lives and spending a lot more time together.

It hadn't been obvious to her that her husband was having an affair and when she found out she had been devastated.

There had then been a period of separation followed by a reconciliation. "In those early weeks things were very tense," said Mr Dyble.

He said that it was during this period of "simmering ill feeling" the incident with the knife had occurred.