A MAN whose wife was having an affair with his best friend stabbed her to death with a kitchen knife as he was preparing the Sunday roast, a court heard.

A MAN whose wife was having an affair with his best friend stabbed her to death with a kitchen knife as he was preparing the Sunday roast, a court heard.

Gareth Lewis plunged a kitchen knife with a 19cm blade into his 42-year-old wife Amanda's stomach during a row about who should move out of their Bury St Edmunds home, Ipswich Crown Court was told.

Several weeks earlier, in the same period that Lewis had lost his job, his wife had made it clear that she wanted to be with his best friend Nigel Langfield rather than him, and the couple had stopped trying to hide their affair.

On October 24 last year, the day of the alleged stabbing, Mrs Lewis had come home at 5.30am after spending the night with Mr Langfield.

Graham Parkins QC, prosecuting, said Mrs Lewis had gone out to do some shopping and on her return she and her husband, who had both recently consulted divorce lawyers, began arguing about who should move out of their Fitzgerald Walk home.

During the argument, 42-year-old Lewis, who has denied murdering his wife, used a kitchen knife to cut the wrappings off a joint of beef and it was this knife that was used to inflict the single fatal stab wound to Mrs Lewis' stomach.

He said that because of the force behind the blow it was a common sense conclusion that Lewis meant to cause her really serious injury.

"The unlawfulness of the action and the intention to cause really serious injury amounts to murder," alleged Mr Parkins.

Outlining the background to the case he described how Gareth and Amanda Lewis had been married for 21 years and had moved to Bury St Edmunds with their two children in 1997 when the company Lewis worked for as an agricultural engineer moved to the town.

His supervisor at work was Nigel Langfield and in September 2001 both men were made redundant when the firm shut down.

Mr Langfield had become a regular visitor at the Lewis's home and witnessed regular rows between the couple arriving out of Lewis's inability to find a permanent job.

Mr Langfield began taking Mrs Lewis to dancing classes after her husband said he wasn't interested in going and their friendship developed from there.

By June 2004 the couple were having an affair and Mrs Lewis consulted a solicitor about starting divorce proceedings.

After his arrest Lewis told police that he had gone to the kitchen bin to throw away the wrapping from the joint of beef and had planned to put the kitchen knife he had been using and a cup in the sink.

However as he turned away from the bin his wife had been standing a foot away from him and he had noticed a surprised look on her face.

He claimed she had said "You stupid fool" and had looked down. He had followed her gaze and saw the kitchen knife in her stomach.

He had immediately pulled out the knife and dialled 999. His call to the emergency services was received at 2.52pm and during it he said: "I've stabbed my wife".

She was taken by ambulance to West Suffolk Hospital where she died at 4.57pm the same afternoon.

Mr Parkins told the court that prior to the alleged stabbing Mrs Lewis had swept up debris from the kitchen floor. Scenes of crime officers had found this dirt on top of the meat wrapping in the bin which did not tie in with Lewis's version of events.

He said that in addition to the stab wound three separate bruises were found on Mrs Lewis's face.

The trial continues today.