A “POSSESSIVE and controlling” husband who murdered his wife because he thought she was having an affair has been told he will have to serve at least 17 years of a life sentence.

Sentencing 59-year-old father-of-three Paul Green, Judge John Devaux rejected his claim that shortly before he stabbed his wife Sharon five times in the chest with a bayonet she had confessed to having two affairs. “It is improbable that she would confess to adultery with two men for fear of what would happen to her,” said the judge.

Judge Devaux – who described former pub owner Green as “possessive and controlling” – said it had not been established that Mrs Green’s relationship with local thatcher Steven Pye had been a sexual one and Green’s accusation that she had been involved in a long-term sexual relationship with another man had been invented by him for the purposes of his trial.

The judge said that at about 4.30am on November 20 last year Green decided to ask his wife if she had been contacting Mr Pye on her computer and, on his way up to their bedroom, he picked up a bayonet and put it up his sleeve.

Green stabbed his wife five times in the chest with the bayonet and a pathologist had told the court severe force would have been needed to inflict the wounds.

“The court has no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that you intended to kill her because of the nature and number of wounds inflicted,” the judge told Green.

However, on the basis that Green believed his wife and Mr Pye were engaged in “something more than mild flirtation” and that he was jealous of them communicating with each other, the judge said he accepted the conduct of Mrs Green amounted to provocation, although this fell well beneath a defence of provocation.

Green had denied murdering Mrs Green but was found guilty by a jury on Monday after a four-day trial at Ipswich Crown Court.

The court had heard Green became convinced his wife was having an affair with Mr Pye, a bachelor from Bramford, after he did some work at their cottage.

Green stabbed her with a bayonet which was part of his collection of Second World War memorabilia.

He then tried to kill himself by driving into a tree.

During the trial the couple’s son Edward Green said he tried to save his mother’s life by giving her the kiss of life after finding her blood-stained body on her bedroom floor.

Brian Reece, for Green, said his client did not expect to survive a term of imprisonment and even if he did, he had nothing to come out to.

After yesterday’s hearing Edward Green he said he did not feel justice had been done as his father should have been sentenced for manslaughter rather than murder.

Life for himself, his brother and sister would never be the same again but they would have to move on with their lives. “We’ll never get over what’s happened,” he said.

Edward denied his father was possessive and he believed he had lost his mind at the time of the killing. “He was totally in love with my mother,” he added.