A TERRIFIED woman had to listen to her friend screaming and pleading with her husband for her life, before she was murdered, an inquest heard today.

The body of Guida Rufino, 38, was discovered, with her throat slashed, when police forced their way into her detached home in Cross Road, Idle, Bradford, on January 31.

Her husband, teaching assistant Anthony Roberts, 37, was found in the bath upstairs. He had stabbed himself in the groin, deliberately severing a major artery, and bled to death.

The inquest in Bradford was given a “chilling account” of Ms Rufino’s final minutes, in a statement from her friend, Johanna Coleman.

The hearing was told Ms Rufino and Mr Roberts, doting parents of a two-year-old daughter, had a volatile relationship. The day before their deaths, Ms Rufino had asked her husband to leave and had the locks changed.

She asked Miss Coleman to stay at the house because she thought Mr Roberts would not take the news well.

Miss Coleman said Mr Roberts picked up his daughter from the house to take her out. He returned alone later and there was an argument between him and his wife.

She told him to leave, but he punched her in the face, knocking her to the floor.

Ms Rufino told her friend to call police, but Mr Roberts grabbed at her phone and there was a struggle.

Miss Coleman said Ms Rufino was pleading, but her husband was not listening and kicked her multiple times in the stomach while she was on the floor. He then tied her hands behind her back.

Miss Coleman said she was then thrown across the room and had her hands and feet bound. She said Mr Roberts then kicked his wife so hard it lifted her body from the floor.

The friend said she was put in a play room and the door was closed. She did not see what took place in the other room but could hear voices.

Miss Coleman said: “It went quiet for about five minutes. Then I heard Guida start to scream: ‘Tony, stop. Don’t do it, please.’”

She then heard gurgling noises, followed by a couple of bangs and it went quiet.

She freed herself and escaped by dropping eight feet from a window, and raised the alarm with neighbours.

The hearing was told that PC Ian Johnson forced entry to the house and found Ms Rufino’s body, covered in a bloodsoaked white sheet, behind the living room sofa near to the front door.

She had a severe deep cut to her neck, some type of ligature round her neck and her hands appeared to be tied behind her back.

He went upstairs and found the body of Mr Roberts in a bath of bloodied water.

Two knives were in the sink.

Pathologist, Dr Richard Shepherd, said Mr Roberts had a six-centimetre-deep cut to his groin which had severed the femeral artery. He had drawn a line on himself in blue ink, marking where the artery was before making the incision.

In a statement, Mr Roberts’s mother, Teresa Roberts, said her son was never a violent man, and always thoughtful and considerate. She told the coroner he had given no indication he would harm himself or anybody else.

She said her son and his wife seemed happy but they rowed over trivial things, like housework, and then got back together. Mr Roberts gave up his job to look after their daughter but seemed happy with the arrangement.

Mrs Roberts said the day before the deaths, her son arrived at her home with a large suitcase and a couple of rucksacks containing his belongings. He was quiet and upset, but there was nothing in his behaviour that made her think it was any different to previous fall outs.

Detective Chief Inspector Ian Scott, the senior investigating officer, told the inquest there was no suggestion that any third party was involved in the deaths.

He said police had been called on three occasions, two years before the deaths, to verbal domestic incidents and a missing persons report, but not to any violence.

Coroner Martin Fleming, concluding Mr Roberts committed suicide, said police were met by a scene of “absolute horror.”

He said: “The evidence suggests he wasn’t prepared to accept the end of the relationship.”

He said he arrived at the house with the ducting tape used to bind the women, indicating pre-planning, and added: “I am satisfied that Anthony was the only person in the house responsible for inflicting the fatal injuries, as far as Guida is concerned.”

Mr Fleming will hold an inquest into Ms Rufino’s death tomorrow.