A SPURNED husband who killed his estranged wife's "possessive" lover who smashed his door in at night has been jailed for four years.

Grzegorz Dzierzak sent a stream of loving text messages to his younger wife, Magdalena, in the hours before Edgarzas Maslauskas went to his house at 4am one day to warn him to stop contacting her.

Maslauskas, 23, was fuelled by vodka and cocaine and had been abusing steroids when he got into a scuffle with Dzierzak in the doorway of the property in Chapel Lane, Keighley, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Mr Maslauskas had Dzierzak in a headlock and his cousin, Igor Jazveniuk, and another man were also present.

Dzierzak, 34, had seized a kitchen knife after threatening to call the police. He was sleeping when he heard his front gate bang and the door being kicked in.

He plunged the weapon eight times into Mr Maslauskas's chest, abdomen and arms, one wound penetrating 15cms.

Dzierzak also stabbed Mr Jazveniuk twice, one blow penetrating his heart and causing a life-threatening injury. He would have died without emergency surgery at Leeds General Infirmary.

Mr Maslauskas was pronounced dead at the scene.

Neither of the men were armed, the court was told yesterday.

Sentencing Dzierzak for manslaughter and unlawful wounding, Judge Peter Benson said it was a tragic case.

He told Dzierzak: "Witnesses speak of you as a mild mannered man, not prone to aggression."

The court has heard that he was now reunited with 26-year-old Magdalena, who was in court with friends and relatives to support him.

The couple had been together ten years and had moved from Poland to Keighley.

Magdalena met Mr Maslauskas in July last year and moved out of the marital home after beginning a relationship with him.

"Her relationship with Edgar was deepening but she speaks of him drinking heavily and taking drugs and steroids and becoming increasingly possessive," Judge Benson said.

Late on Saturday, October 25, last year, Mr Maslauskas was in aggressive mood, fighting in the K2 nightclub with a man who had touched Magdalena.

When she received a message from her husband, he seized her phone and went round to his house, saying: "I'll talk to him so he doesn't ring any more."

Dzierzak had been drinking all day and calling and messaging his wife asking her to come and see him.

Magdalena ran to the house when Dzierzak texted, telling her: "I killed them both."

He told neighbours: "What was I supposed to do? They got into my house."

Magdalena was distraught, telling police: "It's my fault, but I can't help loving two men."

After reading a statement from Mr Maslauskass' mother, Larisa, Judge Benson said: "That lady has lost a much-loved and loving son, to whom she was very close, at a cruelly young age."

The judge said Magdalena wrongly blamed herself. "In my view, she has absolutely no reason to do so," he told the court.

Judge Benson told Dzierzak: "I very much bear in mind that the aggression came to you in the early hours of that morning but you seized a knife and used it repeatedly and as a result of which a man was killed and another man stabbed twice, one of the blows nearly taking his life."

Dzierzak will spend half of the four years behind bars, less the time he spent in custody on remand.

After the case, Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Superintendent Simon Atkinson, said: "We note the court's decision and our thoughts at this time are with the victims in this case and their families, whose lives have been affected forever by the actions of Dzierzak.

"It has been accepted in court that Dzierzak, while having the opportunity to call the police, chose not to do so but armed himself with a knife, with which he stabbed Edgar eight times.

"If it was not for the urgent assistance of the police and medical staff, Edgar's cousin, who was also stabbed in the incident, would also have died.

"Through his actions Dzierzak has not only ruined the lives of his victims' families, but also his own."