A DAD who battered his cheating wife to death with a 4lb paving mallet while his 10-year-old son cowered upstairs was jailed for life today.

Michael Luke, 45, was found guilty of murder after he battered Johanna, 37, to death at their home in Priory Gardens, Willington, County Durham, last August.

At the end of a two-week trial, a jury at Teesside Crown Court rejected his claim that the killing was manslaughter on the grounds of provocation.