A FATHER-of-four who strangled and smothered his wife with a pillow in their Wirral home was this afternoon cleared of her murder.

David Sadler had denied that offence but had admitted manslaughter before the trial began and is to be sentenced on Monday.

Six of the seven women jurors were tearful when the unanimous verdict was returned as were members of Sadler’s family.

58-year-old Jill Sadler was found lying dead in her bed at their home in Wastdale Drive, Moreton, in the early hours of February 18 this year after her husband rang his daughter to tell them that she was dead.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that the couple had been out for a drink the previous evening but she came home before him and by the time he returned home he had drunk ten pints of lager.

Sadler, 62, told a police officer: "I just snapped, she caused the death of my daughter.

"I was just fed up with all the pressure. She just went for me."

The jury had heard how their daughter Joanne died from cancer the previous month and Mrs Sadler, who had a drink problem, was angry after she made arrangements for her children to be looked after by others if her husband also died.

"The two women were estranged at the time of Joanne's death."

Sadler told the jury that his wife’s alcohol intake "dramatically increased" from 2016 onwards and she hid wine bottles in the back of cupboards and behind laundry.

"She changed. She could become very aggressive, very nasty, abusive, uncaring of what she said or done," he said.

He said she slapped his face and threw car keys and mobile phones at him but he loved her "without a shadow of a doubt."

He said he attacked her on the fatal night after she hit him with a remote control when he went up to bed.

He said he did not remember it, but must have caused the majority of his wife's 50 separate injuries, including 11 to her throat, in a sustained attack.

Sadler said he had a flashback in prison to squeezing her neck, but his only "vivid memory" was lying on top of the pillow over her face.

He has been further remanded in custody.