A MAN accused of trying to kill his wife has told a jury that he was fighting for his life during a confrontation as he tried to disarm her.

Paul Temple claims wife Sharon suffered her injuries - a punctured lung and a knife wound to her lip - during a struggle after she lunged at him.

The 48-year-old former taxi driver from Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, said: "I have never hit her. I was brought up not to hit girls. I never have."

Mr Temple has been described as "jealous and controlling" and it is alleged he stabbed his wife when she returned from the home of a man she had been having an affair with.

He told the Teesside Crown Court jury that it "would have been great" if she found happiness with somebody else, and it would not have bothered him.

He also claimed it was his wife who was the controlling one in the 25-year relationship, was prone to "flipping" and had been violent in the past.

Prosecutor Nick Dry described the father-of-three's account as "convoluted nonsense".

Mr Temple bugged his wife's car in the weeks before the incident at her home in Stockton in May - but there is a dispute about the reason for doing so.

He claims he put the tracking device in the Renault Scenic because he was worried about her safety as she was seeing a man who could be violent.

The Crown alleges the bug was installed because he wanted to chart her movements and prove she was cheating - even though the relationship had ended.

Mr Temple spent just short of two-and-a-half hours in the witness box and gave an insight into the couple's lives as well as an account of the stabbing.

He said they had been together for almost 25 years and married for 15 years, and had lived in Newton Aycliffe and nearby Bishop Auckland and Ferryhill.

He said his partner was repeatedly unfaithful, but he always forgave her, and that the relationship was "pretty much done and dusted" last autumn.

"I asked her to marry me three times and after that I just gave up," said Mr Temple.

Mr Temple was once cautioned for cutting up his wife's underwear and wedding dress; and Mrs Temple was cautioned in 2010 for punching him twice.

In the autumn of last year, he was getting ready to move out, but his plans were put on hold when he was diagnosed with cancer, the court heard.

After a lengthy stay in hospital, he moved back into the house in Norfolk Street, Stockton, to recover - but he said the relationship was "dead".

He denied suggestions that he "saw red" about her latest relationship, and said: "I had a lot of other reasons in the past to be angry and I have never hit her."

During cross-examination he said: "Quite a few times I have woken up in the middle of the night with her beating the crap out of me just because I snored."

Mr Temple denies attempted murder and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

The trial continues.