A soldier wife who stabbed her husband during a row has been detained under the Mental Health Act.

Frankie Gausden- Maynard, aged 32, admitted wounding her husband Martin in the early hours of April 4th last year.

Swansea Crown Court heard that psychiatrists had determined that she had suffered from severe depression and agoraphobia.

Judge Keith Thomas said the illnesses were treatable and made an order hospitalising the defendant.

Huw Rees, prosecuting, said Gausden- Maynard had been charged with attempted murder.

But psychiatrists decided that she could not have formed the necessary intent.

By 2011 her agoraphobia was such that she rarely left the couple’s home at the Cawdor Barracks in Brawdy, where her husband was stationed.

On April 3rd they had gone next door for drinks with neighbours.

Mr Rees said the couple drank lager and vodka before returning home.

A minor row developed and while G a u s d e n - M ay n a r d cooked a simple meal, her husband suffered a blow to the head.

Shortly afterwards she stabbed him to the left side of his stomach with a vegetable knife with an 11cm blade.

Mr Rees said the attack caused a cut to her husband’s bowel and a life-threatening injury.

Armed police officers arrived to find him lying on the floor in the hallway and his wife hysterical.

Her barrister, Geraint Walters, said Gausden- Maynard had been held in custody since April 4th of last year and that it was nowappreciated that she had been suffering from mental conditions that could be treated.

Judge Keith Thomas said Gausden-Maynard’s mental state had been affected by excessive alcohol intake and he accepted that a hospital order was the proper way of addressing her offending.