A building worker accused of murdering his 57-year-old wife after she left him to "get a life" faces a retrial.

Terence Troth claims he accidentally stabbed his wife through the heart during an early morning doorstep confrontation.

His wife Maureen had gone to live with her sister in Hinton Fields, Catshill, Bromsgrove, hoping to have some fun after 38 years of marriage and rearing five children. No other man was involved.

But a jury of seven men and five women failed to reach a verdict on murder or an alternative charge of manslaughter following nine hours of deliberations over three days.

Remanding Troth, 59, of Foxwalks Avenue, Rock Hill, Bromsgrove, into custody, Judge Frank Chapman said a retrial could take place at Birmingham or Wolverhampton before Christmas.

During a five day trial at Hereford Crown Court, the jury heard how Troth drank 14 pints of lager the night before the tragedy then phoned his wife with a death threat.

She wrote out a will shortly afterwards leaving everything to her children and left a note in her diary saying she did not want her estranged husband to profit "if anything happens".

On February 18 Troth, dressed in his workclothes, then drove to the sister's address, parking some distance from the house at 7am.

He claimed in police interviews that he struggled with his wife on the doorstep before the fatal blow. The kitchen knife went four and a half inches into the victim's body.

Troth left the scene without summoning help and drove to Bromsgrove police station, which was shut. He then drove home and dialled 999 to give himself up.

During his evidence, he told how he had stabbed himself in the stomach in 1995 when his wife left him for the first time.

He promised to reduce his alcohol consumption and his hours of work and the family were together last Christmas. But his wife walked out again in January saying she was bored.

Rex Tedd QC, prosecuting, told the jury to rule out manslaughter and reject any idea that Mrs Troth provoked her husband to lose his self control.

She wrote her will after recognising she was in danger and forecast "with complete accuracy" her own death. Troth never mentioned the phone call but BT records caught him out.

Mr Tedd said Troth was motivated by anger and had "practised what he preached" in following up his death threat with murder.

But Rachel Brand QC, defending, said someone determined to kill would have carried out a frenzied attack, inflicting a number of knife wounds, not just one. She said the tragedy was a spontaneous event fed by high emotion. Troth had never tried to evade his responsibility for his wife's death. He was upset, unable to cope and his world had fallen apart after the only woman he had ever loved left him.