On the night of the murder, events were sparked by a row over a mobile phone, the defendant told a psychologist. His wife had not wanted him to access her phone and monitor who she had been in contact with, it seemed.

The judge described the 27-year-old as 'narcissistic', and therefore easily upset by jealousy or wounded pride.

As three unsuccessful attempts to unlock the phone automatically blocked the handset, this apparently drove the husband over the edge.

The couple were sitting in a car at the time and he pulled out a fruit knife and stabbed his wife.

She escaped from the car but he continued stabbing and hitting her, then drove the car over his dying wife. By the end of the ordeal she had been blinded, as the knife had also entered her eyes.

An expert witness found the defendant to be fully responsible for the murder, despite the 'overkill' of his actions.

The judge said the man had decided his wife did not deserve to live, and was playing god with her life.

'The court had to make discoveries that would freeze the most hardened person,' Albert said.