Car dealer 'killed wife's mother' over divorce

A French car dealer murdered his British mother-in-law and then tried to kill his wife after she filed for divorce, a court heard today.

Cherif Doua is accused of stabbing Valerie Brocklesby to death with a kitchen knife at her home in West Bromwich five years ago.

The court heard he then turned on his wife Jayne and told her: "I have killed your mother. I am going to kill you."

He stabbed her in the face and neck before fleeing the house and going on the run in France. She survived after emergency surgery.

Doua, who was arrested but released after his first mother-in-law was murdered, denies premeditation or intent to kill. The trial is being held in his home town of Beauvais, 60 miles north of Paris.

Doua met Jayne, now 32, in Spain in 1997. They married the next year but split in 1999 after he was convicted of cigarette smuggling.

She filed for divorce on New Year's Day 2000. The court heard that within days Doua turned up at Jayne's home at 6.30am and subjected her mother Valerie to a "prolonged attack" with a knife as his wife slept. He was arrested at the Gare du Nord station in Paris almost a month later.

Doua claims the attack happened after he argued with Mrs Brocklesby and that he was jealous about Jayne, a sales consultant from Birmingham, starting a new relationship.

The trial continues.