A grieving widow blamed herself when her husband was fatally stabbed by her lover, a court heard.

Barbara Banks admitted she was terrified when her estranged husband Tony tried to smash his way into the Lewes flat where she was living with Dave Armstrong in the middle of the night.

But she told the jury at Lewes Crown Court Armstrong was bigger and stronger than her husband and he should have pushed him away instead of picking up a kitchen knife and stabbing him in the head and neck.

Mrs Banks, a mother-of-two and a grandmother, said days before her husband died he had visited her at work because he knew she was not happy. She described Armstrong as being possessive.

During cross-examination by William Lowe QC, defending Armstrong, Mrs Banks admitted telling the police after the stabbing: "Something had to happen to stop him coming into the flat.

"It was him or us. We had been living in fear of him."

She accepted Armstrong had acted to defend himself and her from Mr Banks but she said he need not have stabbed her husband.

She told the court: "There are other ways. I think Dave is strong enough to manage to force Tony out of the window."

Mr Lowe said to her: "You feel very guilty about all of this?"

She replied: "Yes, I do."

Mr Lowe said: "You have been blamed by the Banks family for what happened?"

She replied: "That is to be expected. No one blames me more than I do myself."

After the fatal stabbing, Mrs Banks ended the relationship.

The court has heard how Mr Banks, 43, arrived at the couple's ground-floor flat in Mill Road at about 3.30am on December 16 last year in a drunken rage .

He picked up a metal dustbin and smashed a kitchen window before trying to climb inside as the couple called police for help.

Armstrong, 39, lunged at Mr Banks in the darkness and stabbed him at least five times. He fell out of the window and died an hour later at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

Armstrong denies a charge of murder. He admits stabbing Mr Banks, who was carrying a fishing knife in his pocket, but maintains he was in fear of his and Mrs Banks's lives and was acting in self-defence.

The court has heard how Mrs Banks was married for 24 years until she left the family home in Cowfold Road, Whitehawk, Brighton, in October last year after starting an affair with Armstrong, a good friend and work partner of her husband.

Mr Banks, a kitchen fitter, had been devastated when she left and had been trying to persuade her to return to him. He had threatened suicide and broken into the Mill Road flat and smashed furniture.

On the night of December 15, he made repeated phone calls to Armstrong and sent threatening text messages demanding: "Leave my wife alone."

In the early hours of the following morning he turned up at the flat and was fatally stabbed as he tried to get in.

The trial continues.