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Iain Farrimond has been sentenced to six years prison time - representational image Getty

A senior court prosecutor with the West Midlands Crown Prosecution Service has confessed to stabbing his wife Tina in the head and beating her with a large ornamental cat. Iain Farrimond of Worcester told the Nottingham Crown Court on 30 September that he wanted to kill his wife of 28 years on the eve of their wedding anniversary because of work-related stress.

Intending 26 May to be a "day of death", the 54-year-old attacked his wife while she was asleep with a kitchen knife. Having failed to kill her, he then beat her with a large ornamental cat before she was able to escape into the bathroom. He then wrote a suicide note and stabbed himself with another knife before calling 999 emergency services.

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Bill Emlyn Jones, prosecuting, said that the court's new online case system was a challenge to Farrimond who has an "increasing feeling that he couldn't cope at work and was worried he'd have to leave his job".

"He'd rationalised to himself the consequences of losing his job and feared his wife would not be able to cope. That had crystallised in his mind as he lay unable to sleep in the small hours of 26 May," Jones explained in court.

During his eight-minute emergency call, the husband explained that he had stabbed his wife "really badly", but "just couldn't do it". He later told the police: "I thought today was going to be the day of death. I couldn't get that right."

Tina, who suffered five stab wounds, was reportedly recovering well, as was Farrimond. He was dismissed from the CPS and given a prison term of five years. In his sentencing, Judge Gregory Dickinson described it as a sad case, in which a "loving and devoted husband" turned violent "in the grip of severe depressive illness".

He added: "But for the effects of your illness, you don't have a violent bone in your body".