A 62-year-old retired hotelier was last week jailed for six years for stabbing a friend whom he said had taunted him for years about having sex with his wife.

Kenneth Jenkins of Inner Loop, Beachley, near Chepstow, wept in the dock at Gloucester Crown Court after Recorder Peter Towler jailed him for unlawfully wounding Anthony Friendship with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm.

The defendant's wife Rose, who was sitting at the back of the court, also broke down and had to be helped outside.

The court heard how Jenkins had confronted his victim in the gents at the Rising Sun pub in Woodcroft, near Chepstow, on the night of 11th March last year and stabbed him twice with a lock-knife.

He first stabbed Mr Friendship in the back and then plunged the knife three inches deep into the victim's abdomen, rupturing his spleen.

Prosecuting barrister Julian Kesner said: "Pre-meditation and the use of a weapon are aggravating features in this case.

"It was more luck than judgement that this was not a murder case."

Defending barrister Huw Wallace said: "The level of teasing over more than a year must have been pretty horrific as my client, being in the hotel business, would have been used to banter.

"He is in very poor health – heart problems, diabetes, obesity, hyper-tension and depression – and the medication he takes has side-effects, including heightened aggression, nervousness, panic attacks and confusion.

"He is of impeccable character and has no previous convictions or court appearances whatsoever."

But Recorder Towler told Jenkins: "At the end of the day this is a double stabbing with a knife in a public place and therefore very, very serious.

"I accept that the lock-knife was used earlier to open a box during a house move and you slipped it into your pocket.

"I also accept that you and your wife at first went to a different pub and that when you saw Mr Friendship it was a spur-of-the-moment decision.

"For more than a year you believed that Mr Friendship had been spreading rumours about your wife and although she assured you there was no truth in the rumours you became seriously depressed.

"It is only by good fortune that somebody else came into the toilets at the time or else the attack could have continued and the results could have been life-threatening.

"You are not a dangerous man and I am satisfied that you are not but a sentence of immediate custody is inevitable."

At the trial, Jenkins told the jury that for years members of a golfing society called the Bobcats had ribbed him about the supposed sexual fling between his wife Rose and pal Anthony Friendship 30 years ago.

And on the night of 11th March last year, Jenkins snapped after Mr Friendship allegedly pinched 60-year-old Rose's bottom.

So he followed Mr Friendship into the gents at the Rising Sun and stabbed his friend as he stood at a urinal.

Mr Friendship was rushed to hospital and was detained for two nights for treatment to his damaged spleen but has made a good physical recovery.

At the trial, Jenkins claimed in evidence he was on strong medication for depression at the time and he had no recollection at all of what happened in the pub toilet.

But after a four-and-a-half-hour retirement, a jury of six men and six women convicted him by a majority of 10 to two.