A MAN stabbed his 19-year-old bride to death while she slept - only four days after they wed, a court heard yesterday.

Stephen Butters knifed Claire Cummings six times in the chest as she lay in the marital bed then tried to kill himself, a jury at Teesside Crown Court was told.

Butters, 41, denies murdering his wife last May at their home in High Row, Loftus, east Cleveland, on the grounds of diminished responsibility. But he admits unlawfully killing her.

Franz Muller QC, prosecuting, told the court Mr Butters had been married twice before, both times to brides in their late teens, and had seven children from three past relationships.

Claire, he said, had been the family babysitter in the late 1990s, when Butters was married to her cousin Holly, with whom he had two children.

After Holly left him for another man, Butters fell in love with Claire and they secretly married at Guisborough Register Office on May 4.

Mr Muller said Butters and his new wife loved each other very much, were "devoted" to one another and regularly disturbed their neighbour with the sounds of love-making.

He added Butters was an insomniac who needed sleeping tablets, prescribed by his doctor.

But, he said, Butters had stopped taking them a matter of days before he stabbed his wife as he had run out of tablets over the Bank Holiday weekend.

He said that about 7am on May 8, Butters, who had not slept for three nights, went into the bedroom he shared with his young wife, and stabbed her while she slept.

The court heard how during police interviews Butters admitted he had killed his wife.

Mr Muller said that Butters told police the teenager's dying words had been: "What are you doing, love?"

After the stabbing, Butters made unsuccessful attempts to hang and electrocute himself before later trying to throw himself off cliffs near their home.

He failed to go through with the final attempt because he had a fear of heights.

Mr Muller said the defendant rang the police from his mobile while at Hummersea Cliffs and told them what he had done, warning he was going to kill himself.

He told the police operator: "I loved her to bits. I can't face up to life. I just killed her, the one thing I love the most in the world. I can't believe it."

When asked what had brought the event on, he replied: "I've been depressed as hell."

An officer later persuaded him to come down from the cliffs.

In police interviews, when asked why he had stabbed his wife, Butters said he had not slept in three nights and added: "I just went off my head with depression and not sleeping."

Claire's mother, primary school teacher Christina Cummings, told the court she and her daughter's step-father had not approved of the relationship.

They knew nothing of their wedding until after her daughter's death.

She described her daughter as "bright", "extremely sociable and independent".

Butters' mother, Mary Whiteley, said her son suffered from depression and insomnia.

Stuart Wilcockson and his wife Faye, who were witnesses at the marriage of Butters and Claire, both told the jury Butters suffered from depression.

Butters worked occasionally for Mr Wilcockson as a painter and decorator.

Mrs Wilcockson said in a statement read in court that the couple were "very much in love" and described Butters as "the most kind and gentle man I have ever met".

The trial continues