A MAN slit his wife’s throat before turning the blade on himself in a murder-suicide bid, fuelled by ‘sexual jealousy’, a court heard.

Prosecutors said that Fatos Xheta’s wife was ‘possibly’ asleep at the time of the knife attack in the early hours of June 17 this year.

Jurors at the start of the 46-year-old’s trial were told today that after killing his wife Safie, he then placed a gag on his mouth and repeatedly stabbed himself.

When family members went to the family home at Lytton Road, Oxford, that day he shouted through a locked door ‘I am like a colander full of holes.’

An apparent suicide note, the court heard, found at the scene claimed Mrs Xheta had slept with other men and he wrote in his native Albanian ‘betrayal is settled only by death.’

Xheta denies one count of murder alleged to have take place at the Cowley address earlier this year.

Prosecutor Charles Ward-Jackson outlined the case against him before a jury of six women and six men at Oxford Crown Court today.

He said that in the build-up to the knife attack Xheta was described as ‘suspicious’ at his wife’s friendships and 'controlling' and he would search through her phone and her Instagram account.

Mr Ward-Jackson said of the BMW mini plant cleaner: “He appeared to suspect her of having affairs, they would have frequent rows.”

Prosecutors went on to say that Xheta had been 'unhappy' in the run-up to the killing and said he had struggled to find better employment

Speaking of the alleged murder he said: “This was a pre-meditated killing planned with a clear intention to kill first his wife and then himself.”

Concerning the day of the alleged killing jurors were told that a family member received a message from Xheta which prompted her to go to the house at about 5am.

She found the door unlocked, prosecutors said, but when she went inside she saw that the upstairs bedroom door was locked.

The jury heard that after shouting through the locked door Xheta called out 'I am like a colander full of holes' and the police were called.

Body worn footage recorded by police officers who attended the scene was also played to the jury.

In that footage officers were seen to go inside the locked bedroom where they discovered what prosecutors called a 'gruesome' sight.

Both Xheta and his alleged victim were lying on the bed, the court heard, with Fatos 'obviously injured, covered in blood' and also with a gag fastened to his mouth.

His wife, meanwhile, was lying alongside him dead from multiple stab wounds.

Mr Ward-Jackson said: "It was immediately obvious to the officers that she was dead [...] she had multiple deep wounds to her neck, all of them, the prosecution say, caused by the defendant."

Three kitchen knives were all found on the bed, jurors were told, and officers quickly threw them on to the floor before Fatos was treated for his injuries.

Detailing the injuries prosecutors said that Safie had been stabbed using 'severe' force and that one of her wounds measured10cm in depth.

He added that the wounds, which he said were inflicted with a kitchen knife, had 'almost decapitated her'.

Investigating the scene, the jury were told, officers found a number of diary notes which Mr Ward-Jackson said were written by Xheta.

In one of those notes, prosecutors said, Xheta wrote in Albanian 'betrayal is settled only by death' and in another he said his wife had been sleeping with 'many many' people.

Xheta's own condition that morning was described in court as 'really quite badly injured' and he had to be treated in intensive care at hospital before he was well enough to be interviewed by police.

Jurors were told that he answered no comment to the majority of the questions asked at that interview.

Xheta denies murder and the trial - expected to last two weeks - continues.