Ex-fireman tells of killing his wife

A retired firefighter from Halesowen sobbed today as he told a jury how he strangled his wife after she revealed she was going leave him for his best friend.

Michael Wathen attacked his wife Margaret after she phoned her lover Alan Thompson and told him to collect her from the marital home in Brier Mill Road.

The couple had seen a marriage counsellor earlier that day but when they returned home Wathen, 67, told the murder trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court that he had asked her to choose between the two men.

He told the jury today: "I said 'we can't go on like this, you've got to make a choice'. I wasn't implying that she should make a choice there and then but that is exactly what she did.

"She stood up and phoned Thompson and said 'he has given me an ultimatum, can you come and fetch me'."

Wathen said he had expected his wife of 44 years to tell Mr Thompson, who he had known for 30 years, that their affair must end.

He told the jury: "Immediately I felt as if the bottom had fallen out of my world. Without thinking, I got up and walked up to her and put my hands around her neck."

He said he pushed her onto their bed. He added: "I was on top of her, my head and shoulders were above her body and my chest was resting on her face.

"All I remember is falling on top of her and I have no further memory. I don't know if I passed out but I have got no memory from the time I hit the bed. Something brought me back to my senses and I rolled to the left and I saw her face, it was all puffy and horrid."

Wathen denies murder but admits manslaughter on the basis he did not intend to kill his wife and he had no control over his actions.

Mr Gareth Evans, prosecuting, said Wathen was "making excuses" by claiming he passed out.

The trial continues.