A distraught husband threatened to stab his family on Valentine's Day after his wife began a new relationship with one of his friends.

Peter Wreford moved out of the couple's home in Bromyard, but began sending her abusive text phone messages.

He then turned up after drinking and, during a row, forced her to the floor and banged a door against her legs, said Anthony Warner, prosecuting at Worcester Crown Court.

Deborah Wreford, a mother-of-three, eventually escaped into the street and was helped by an off-duty policeman.

During the incident on Wednesday, February 14, last year, the defendant began shouting and warned: "If I can't have you, no one will have you. I'll stab the lot of us," said Mr Warner.

Wreford, a 28-year-old night-shift worker, of Widemarsh Street, Hereford, admitted affray.

Judge Michael Mott ordered him to carry out 100 hours community work and pay his estranged wife £200.

He said it was "a deplorable episode" caused by the ending of their troubled marriage."

The judge warned he had "marched right up to the prison gates", and any repetition of the offences would mean custody.

The defendant had been unable to accept that his wife was in a new romance with one of his former friends, said Mr Warner.

He broke two phones during the incident and the violence caused one of his children to be physically sick.

Wreford, who had two previous convictions for assaulting his wife, had shouted: "I want to come back, but mummy won't have me."

Defence counsel Andrew Tucker said the couple had been childhood sweethearts and married when Wreford was only 17.

He had gone through a period of high emotion but now accepted the marriage was over.

Mr Tucker said he recklessly caused his wife's injuries, rather than intentionally, at a time when he felt as though he had been rejected.