A young mother stabbed to death by her husband was terrified he was going to kill her after she ended their violent marriage, a court was told.

Cassandra Hasanovic, 24, told police only hours before she was knifed to death that she feared for her life.

She was attacked with a kitchen knife by her estranged husband Hajrudin Hasanovic after he lost a custody battle for their two children and was told he would be deported.

He is accused of stabbing her in Normanton Avenue, Bognor, in front of their young sons and her mother as they were about to drive to a women’s refuge last July.

Serbian-born Hasanovic, 33, from Dover, denies murder but admits manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at Lewes Crown Court.

Statements made to the police and solicitors by Mrs Hasanovic after she ended their three-year marriage were read to the jury. Mrs Hasanovic detailed times she said her husband hit her and the children and threatened to kill them. She said he breached court orders stopping him from contacting her.

She said: “He said he was going to chop me up in little pieces and post me piece by piece to my family.”

Mrs Hasanovic fled to relatives in Australia in May 2007 after leaving her husband.

But she was forced to return to Britain in February last year to sort out custody of the children after Hasanovic started legal proceedings.

She was staying with her mother in Nyewood Lane, Bognor, but decided to go to the refuge because of the threats she said she was receiving from Hasanovic.

On the day she died, July 29, she made a statement to police hours before the fatal attack in which she said: “I live in fear for my safety. I am so scared of him.”

The trial continues.