Lesley Culley, 58, has been jailed for six years

A housewife who stabbed her husband to death days before their 30th wedding anniversary has been jailed for six years.

Lesley Culley, 58, stabbed Anthony Culley, 56, twice with a kitchen knife after they had a row on their way home from a pub where they were due to host an anniversary party.

Prosecutors at Manchester Crown Court said she attacked Mr Culley with 'severe force' after he complained about the bed being unmade.

Police called to the couple's flat in Coldhurst, near Oldham in Greater Manchester found Mr Culley dead on the living room floor and his wife sobbing and curled up in a ball in the corner of their bedroom.

Her defence said Lesley Culley was 'in fear' of her husband after years of 'domestic problems'.

A psychiatric report said she had symptoms of 'mania, including irritability, paranoid thinking, verbal dis-inhibition and mood liability.'

Mr Culley had been injured on several occasions before his death, the court heard.

Police found Anthony Culley dead on the living room floor at his home in Oldham, Manchester

He was stabbed in the shoulder in September 2016 in what Lesley's defence barrister described as a 'dress rehearsal' for the fatal incident.

Following the incident in 2016, Lesley was examined by her GP and found to be 'significantly bruised.'

Mr Culley had also suffered fractured ribs on three separate occasions, the last just a few days before he was killed.

On the afternoon of December 8, 2016, eleven days before they were due to celebrate their 30th anniversary, Lesley dropped off a bag of food at the Old Bank pub in Oldham for the landlady to put aside for the party.

Her husband turned up shortly afterwards, and they spent a couple of hours drinking, the court heard.

Lesley told police they left after she drank a bottle of wine, by which time Mr Culley had had ten pints.

Lesley Culley, 58, stabbed her 56-year-old husband Anthony with a kitchen knife after they had a row on their way home from a pub where they were due to host an anniversary party

At 7.15pm neighbours heard an argument and minutes later Lesley called 999, saying her husband had 'collapsed bleeding from his shoulder', but she did not know what he had done to injure himself.

Officers at the scene heard Lesley screaming from behind a door and found Mr Culley motionless, face down in a pool of blood on the living room floor.

He had been stabbed in the chest, with a wound to his forearm suggesting he had tried to defend himself.

Lesley told police she and her husband argued on the way home from the pub, and he became 'abusive' over the bed being unmade.

Manchester Crown Court heard the couple wed in 1986, three years after Lesley's seven year marriage to her first husband, with whom she had two sons, ended.

Culley was originally charged with murder but her guilty plea to manslaughter was accepted

In 2004 they moved to Cyprus to start new new lives as ex-pats.

But their relationship began crumbling in 2011 when they had to return to the UK after her younger son died on Christmas Day 2010 and her eldest child was seriously injured in a motorbike smash.

Culley was originally charged with murder but her guilty plea to manslaughter was accepted after she claimed she experienced a 'loss of self-control when fearing violence from the deceased.'

In mitigation, defence lawyer John Harrison said: 'There is clearly a relevant history and if nothing else the incident in September provided a dress-rehearsal for what was to happen.

'This particular offence has to be seen in the context of her fear of what the deceased was going to do to her.

'This is a spontaneous offence - lacking in pre-meditation. She had been planning her 30th wedding anniversary that day. It is a tragic family history.'