A husband who gave his wife a miniature coffin, warning she would end up in it, was yesterday jailed for 10 months for a vicious attack in which she suffered a black eye and a serious head wound after being hit with a model wooden balcony.

The 56-year-old man claimed he was jesting when he presented the coffin to her, just before the family sat down to dinner, and told her: “That is where you will end up”. His wife and three children, however, did not see the joke.

A few weeks after the incident in August 2005, the mother left the home she shared with her husband to live in an apartment that belonged to the couple in Marsascala.

Their eldest child, a daughter, had left home because of her father’s abusive behaviour and the youngest, also a girl, moved in with her mother. The middle child, a son, remained in the matrimonial home.

She returned on December 17 on suspicion that she might find another woman living in the house having been alerted by the son that his father had decorated the house for Christmas (something that was totally out of character) and that he did not want anyone in the house.

A fierce argument broke out between the two and the man beat his wife over the head with a model wooden balcony, causing a gushing wound that needed six sutures.

During the proceedings he claimed he had never hit her but that she had fallen onto a column and injured her eye on a ceramic ornament.

But Magistrate Antonio Mizzi did not believe him and found him guilty of seriously injuring her, threatening to kill her and swearing at her.

Dr Roberto Montalto appeared parte civilile.