A JEALOUS man stabbed his estranged wife to death during a frenzied attack in a park, a court heard.

Brian Oliver, of Duke Street, Radcliffe, discovered that Joanne Oliver had struck up a relationship with a man she met on Facebook, and stabbed the 32-year-old 15 times, a trial at Manchester Crown Court was told on Tuesday.

Prosecuting, Graham Wood, QC, said: “It is plain, say the Crown, that this was a prolonged and vicious attack in which Joanne Oliver would have been trying to get away despite the severity of her injuries.”

Mr Wood told a jury of nine women and three men that 40-year-old Oliver, who admits the killing but denies murder, will rely on the defence of diminished responsibility and provocation.

He said: “The Crown will say that there is an almost irresistible inference from the frenzy of the attack that the defendant was intent on killing his wife, even if he had suicidal ideas.

“It may well be that the defendant did not want to carry on living if his wife was seeing another man, but it is a matter of common sense that a suicidal person is capable of killing others as well as himself.”

The evening before Mrs Oliver’s death, on Friday, September 24, last year, Oliver sent her a series of text messages asking for the truth about her new boyfriend, but Mrs Oliver denied she was in a relationship, the court heard.

Oliver asked to see Joanne and at about 8.50am the next morning she picked him up in her car and they arrived at Heaton Park, Prestwich, at about 9.25am.

Mr Wood said: “The only person alive who knows precisely what happened in that period of time is the defendant, because the first occasion that any witness comes across either of them again is about 10am.”

Juliette Lewis was walking two dogs in the park near the reservoir when she saw a man near the bottom of some steps.

He was standing over something and holding a very large knife in his hand, covered in blood, Mr Wood told the court.

She told police the man appeared to be “crazed or drunk, as if on another planet”.

She ran to a group of nearby workmen to report what she had seen. Mr Wood said when the workmen encountered the knifeman he looked “bedraggled and bloody” and was on his mobile phone.

Giving evidence, Steven Cross, who was working for ADG Landscape Architects, told the court that Oliver asked him for a drink and cigarette and said “my wife has been cheating on me after 14 years, she’s found a new fella and I’ve slit her throat”.

Mr Cross said Oliver had a cut across his throat and cuts on his wrists and appeared to be suicidal.

He was detained by police and arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder.

The couple had been together for 14 years and married for 10. They had living together in Duke Street.

Mr Wood told the court their relationship was a volatile one with many arguments.

They had split up several times over the last couple of years and at the time of her death Mrs Oliver, a supervisor at Morrison’s supermarket in Whitefield, was living with her mum in Whitefield.

Mr Wood said: “The defendant would drink excessively and on occasions he was violent to his wife.

“Those who knew the couple will say that he was jealous of her with other men and somewhat possessive and controlling.

“It may well be that this attitude of the defendant had something to do with his behaviour on September 24.

“On one occasion, when he had been drunk, he had confided in a friend about what he would do to Joanne if he ever found out that she was being unfaithful to him.”

In early August last year, Oliver assaulted his wife by pushing her against a tumble drier following an argument.

He grabbed her by the throat and slapped her across the face, for which he received a community sentence.

Mr Wood said: “This a tragic case for everyone involved. People do not always act rationally when emotions are intensified.

“This defendant did not act rationally when he realised that his wife did not want to be reconciled.

“Whether he brought the knife to the park with the intention of killing himself and his wife, or just his wife, or just himself, is a matter which we may never be able to establish.

“However, the Crown will say that his intention at the time of the brutal attack was very real.”

The trial continues.