A 67-year-old grandfather smothered his wife with a pillow and cushions after she gave away a sentimental toy belonging to their tragic son.

Raymond Williams flew into a rage when the car was given to their grandson without him being consulted.

After drinking a whisky and part of a beer, he pushed his wife Margaret onto a bed and gripped her round the throat.

She thought she was going to die before he let go, said Charles Hardy, prosecuting at Worcester Crown Court.

But Williams, married for 47 years, renewed the attack and smothered her face until she had trouble breathing. When his son-in-law Robert Flynn came to the door after neighbours heard the victim’s screams, Williams grabbed a kitchen knife and the men struggled.

The grandfather suffered a cut head, which needed 15 stitches, when a plant pot was hurled at him and Mr Flynn cut his hand as he grabbed the blade.

The couple’s five-year-old son died of cancer in the 1970s and they gave most of his toys to charity, only keeping the car, said Daniel White, defending.

Williams, of Stourbridge Road, Kidderminster, was jailed for nine months as his family watched from the court’s public gallery.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of assault causing actual bodily harm.

Recorder David Crigman QC said anyone hearing the case would have sympathy over such an emotional issue, but the consequences of his behaviour against his wife, also in her sixties, could have been serious.

“You squeezed the neck of a defenceless woman, then compounded it by smothering. The violence could have killed her,” he said.

Mr Crigman said Williams’s wife wanted him home after his 97 days in custody on remand. But he could not pass a sentence influenced by her sympathy.

Mrs Williams was taken to hospital suffering from a bruised lip and swollen face.

Williams, who had no previous convictions, had not tried to suffocate his wife but was trying to stop her screaming, said Mr White.

His wife had made a retraction statement in a bid to stop the prosecution going ahead.

Mr White said: “The defendant was pushed over the edge but apologises to those he injured. He has been in daily contact with his wife from jail. Life without him has been traumatic for her.”