A Pennant pensioner has been jailed after admitting strangling his wife of 57 years following an early morning row.

Frank Long, 80, of Blaen Pant Farn, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his wife, Mavis Long, 77, who died in May this year.

Swansea Crown Court heard how Long grabbed his wife around the neck and strangled her in the bedroom of the farmhouse they shared following an argument.

Mrs Long’s behaviour had become increasingly argumentative and “difficult” in recent years, the court was told, and though no formal diagnosis was made during her life, a subsequent postmortem found evidence of “Alzheimer’s changes” in her brain.

But Judge Paul Thomas told Long it was “no mercy killing”, adding that there were thousands of couples around the UK living with Alzheimer’s whose relationships did not end in violence.

Prosecutor Paul Hobson said Long had driven to see a friend in the West Midlands, where the couple are originally from, after a row in which Mavis had started shouting and throwing cups at him.

He told his friend he left because he was afraid “he would do something nasty”.

The following morning, after returning to Pennant, Long was in the bedroom of the couple’s farmhouse, when his wife began shouting at him and knocked off his glasses.

“It just all kicked off, I just lost it, I just had enough, I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Long, according to Mr Hobson.

The court heard Long then called 999, telling the call handler: “I think my wife is dead, I think my wife is dead. I think I’ve done it. We have had a raging argument and I think I’ve strangled her.”

Sentencing Long to three years and four months in jail, Judge Thomas said: “The simple fact here, Mr Long, is that you killed your wife.

“You snapped because, in your words, the red mist came down and, on your account, she either deliberately or accidentally knocked your glasses off.

“You throttled her with both hands with such force that she died. She must have been terrified as you throttled her, unable to fight you off or get you to stop.”

The judge said he accepted Long had not meant to kill his wife, but said as an intelligent man he must have realised the risks of strangling her.

He said the appropriate sentence under the guidelines would have been one of eight or nine years - but that would be significantly reduced for his guilty plea as well as his previous good character, remorse, age, and the fact Long had “a very great deal to cope with”.