A jealous wife stabbed her husband in the chest, then threw his mother's ashes around their bedroom, a court was told yesterday.

Robin Melngalvis told Leeds Crown Court his 41-year-old wife, Catherine, rubbed two kitchen knives down his face before stabbing him in the back of the hand. She then thrust one of the weapons into his chest, it was claimed.

The knife punctured and collapsed his lung, but he managed to disarm his wife and took the knives to a neighbour, who raised the alarm.

Mrs Melngalvis was found in the bedroom of their home, in Springbank Rise, Keighley, by police. She was covered in a grey powder, which turned out to be her mother-in-law's ashes.

The court heard she told hospital staff that after an argument "I got his mother out of the urn and scattered her all over the bedroom".

Prosecutor Howard Crowson said the couple had had a relatively short and turbulent marriage, with periods of separation. Mrs Melngalvis had twice previously threatened to stab her husband, he claimed.

On September 23, last year, the couple went out drinking. Mr Melngalvis told the court he went home after they argued and he was falling asleep in a chair when his wife came in.

He said: "She started shouting you bastard'. She went straight into the kitchen. I heard her rooting around. The next thing, she was stood in front of me with two big chopping knives in her hand."

Mr Melngalvis denied previously threatening his wife with a knife and blackening her eye. He said he could not remember showing his wife a text message from a woman he described as his best mate that evening.

In police interviews, Mrs Melnglavis, who has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and an alternative charge of wounding with intent, said the chest wound was caused during a struggle when her husband restrained her as she stroked his face with the knives.

She said the stabbing had been unintentional and her intention had only been to threaten him.

The trial continues.