A man cut his lover's throat in a camper van, then told police: "You don't know what I have had to put up with."

Peter Walton, 57, and his partner, Ann May, 50, wanted to make a new start by selling their home in Croydon and moving to Sussex.

The couple, said to have had a "turbulent" relationship, stopped in Heene Road, Worthing, for the night on August 9 last year, Lewes Crown Court heard.

They began arguing after a day spent househunting. The row escalated and Walton ended up attacking his lover with a claw hammer and slitting her throat with a craft knife.

She was still alive as he cut her throat. Walton, 57, admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility but pleaded not guilty to murder.

The prosecution accepted the pleas. Judge Richard Brown remanded Walton to a medium secure hospital until December 18 for further medical reports.

Susan Edwards, prosecuting, said Walton called police to the camper van from a nearby telephone box, saying he had killed Ann May.

When police arrived they found her lying on the bloodstained bed with a claw hammer and a knife nearby.

Miss Edwards said: "It was clear she had received a number of blows to her face and she had also been punched. "There was a cut of 21.5cm across her neck which had been inflicted by a craft knife.

"She had probably been alive when her neck was cut. Marks were found on Mr Walton which indicated she had attempted to ward off the blows from the hammer and the knife."

Police found Walton near the van, Miss Edwards said. When officers told him he was being arrested on suspicion of murder he replied: "There is no suspicion - I killed her".

He told police: "You do not know what I have had to put up with."

Miss Edwards said the couple had been living together for many years. They often went touring in the camper van.

She said: "For many years there had been a turbulent relationship. Mr Walton claimed Ann May had been domineering and prior to her death there had been a deterioration in the relationship.

"But in the immediate period before her death she seemed to be happy and content. "Neighbours thought they had appeared to reconcile their difficulties. They went out shopping together and seemed to be getting on well."

The couple had spent the day visiting estate agents in Littlehampton as they hoped to sell up and move to the South Coast, paying cash for a property to resolve some of Walton's financial difficulties.

When interviewed, Walton said Ann May had been constantly trying to smear him and had tried to belittle him.

The court heard he had tried to cause grievous bodily harm to his previous wife in 1972 by trying to run her down on a zebra crossing.