A scheme wife lured her husband to woods in Bristol on a promise of sex, only to stab him and abandon him while she went to meet a lover, a court was told.

Joanne Hale had blindfolded her unsuspecting husband Peter at their home in Hawksmoor Lane, Stapleton, and given him an aphrodisiac called 'horny goat weed' to get him in the mood for love, Bristol Crown Court was told yesterday.

After the couple walked in woodland near the Dower House in Stoke Park they frolicked on the ground before Mr Hale knelt down and his wife came up behind him, slit his throat with a knife and plunged it into his neck and chest.

Mr Hale suffered a 12cm (4.5in) slash to his throat before he was stabbed several more times, including an almost fatal 2cm deep (0.75in) wound to his chest.

The jury heard that, when Hale was disturbed by a passer-by, she said she did not know who Mr Hale was and had no idea what had happened to him. She then left him with the stranger and went to Bristol Parkway station, where she had arranged to meet a man she had met on the internet.

But by the time she got home the police were waiting for her.

Hale, 39, denies attempted murder as well as wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm in December last year.

Mr Hale told the jury he and his wife had first been pen pals before marrying in February 2000 and living in Stapleton.

He said both he and his wife were badly affected by stress as he "totally messed up" his studies for a PhD at the University of the West of England and was just about to be made redundant.

Mr Hale recalled that, on December 27 last year, he was enjoying the Christmas holiday and put thoughts of his PhD aside.

He and his wife watched TV, but in the afternoon his wife gave him horny goat weed, a natural sex stimulant which he agreed to take.

He said: "I think both of us discussed how to prepare it. Jo said it was quite unpalatable and I said I would like a drink with it.

"I think, probably, a migraine cap was put on my head; it was just a kind of sexual game. I enjoyed the game but I lifted it up because I wanted to see."

Mr Hale said about 6pm they decided to go for a walk and they headed to Dower House in the dark.

He said: "We went through the kissing gates then on the cobbled path.

"I felt absolutely fine. Jo didn't like it around there; she believes in spiritual things, the paranormal, and she was getting bad vibes from it."

In his witness statement Mr Hale said he thought a sexual experience was about to take place in the woods as it was his wife's fantasy but they had not acted on it.

He said they walked on for a time, spotting some campers near the monument, before they headed for the Stapleton side of the park.

But Mr Hale said he had only gone outside because he was feeling hot and needed to cool down and had assumed any intimacy would take place indoors.

He said: "We had a cuddle and a bit of rolling about in the leaves. I was happy at that point. There was something involving a stick; I thought it was a playful game. It was a bit odd."

Hale straddled her husband as he lay face down, and poked his neck with the stick.

It was then, he said, things got "hazy" but he recalled seeing a man as well as his wife, before being in hospital.

After slashing her husband's throat and stabbing him, Hale was disturbed by a passer-by, Timothy Walker.

She left her husband, with Mr Walker, without saying she knew him or what had happened.

She then drove to Bristol Parkway, where she had arranged to meet postal worker Philip Sudol, a man she had met over the internet, in person for the first time.

Hale told Mr Sudol she was separated, but her husband had injured himself and she would get the blame.

The case continues at Bristol Crown Court.