Sam Travers has spoken for the first time how he faced mental torture and physical abuse from Maria Pearson in the years before she went on to stab Janet Newton 17 times in a vicious attack in 1986.

More than 20 years on, her former husband has spoken of the violence and manipulation he faced during their two-year relationship in the late 1970s.

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Mr Travers was separated from Pearson but the pair were never divorced when she tied the knot again in a bigamous ceremony with a man named Malcolm Pearson.

This relationship ended too and Malcolm found love again with building society clerk Janet Newton, from Hartlepool.

But their relationship was to end tragically at the hands of spurned rival Pearson who stalked Janet before killing her in a frenzied knife attack, in Grange Road, Hartlepool, on October, 18, 1986.

Years earlier Mr Travers was given a chilling indication of what was to come from Pearson when she assaulted one of his girlfriends after following her home and attacking her in the street.

A further indication of her violence came following an argument during their two-year relationship when Pearson went for him with a knife, but the blade failed to cause any lasting damage.

Mr Travers, 57, who now runs a pub in Margate, Kent, where he has a 25-year-old son, said: "She tried to stab me, but the knife just bent and it ran up the side of my ribs.

"I was so glad to get away. I moved to Nottingham to get away because I knew she wouldn't give me any peace."

The former pupil at St Bede's School, Hartlepool, which went on to form English Martyrs School and Sixth Form, said after a break-up, Pearson attacked one of his girlfriends after seeing them together in the street.

He said: "I would see her and her partner and I would walk away. But she saw me with one of my girlfriends and she assaulted her.

"I wasn't with her at the time, but she followed her home and attacked her."

The attack was even brought up during her murder trial when Pearson admitted she had previously been convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm on a woman called Kimberley Hind on November 11, 1977.

Mr Travers said the relationship ended after he was jailed for two years for shoplifting offences which he said he admitted, but said they were committed by his then wife.

"I went through mental torture," he added. "I was yearning for love and I wanted to be part of a family. I left myself open and she used and abused it.

"She is a nasty horrible piece of work.

"She shows no remorse.

"If evil has a name it is Maria. Some people you meet and you know they are utterly evil and she was.

"Now it looks like she's behind bars forever she can't touch me now."