THE FIRST lady of Gawsworth Hall - Elizabeth Richards - was the first to discover the horrific scene of her brother's wife stabbed in the neck, face and back, a murder trial has heard.

The wife of Timothy Richards - the owner of the hall - told Manchester Crown Court that she received a phone call from her brother - top solicitor Christopher Lumsden, 51 - in which he told her: "I think I have killed Alison."

Leaving their son, Rupert at home, the couple drove to his £1million mansion in Bowden, Manchester in March last year, where the lawyer was found distraught wearing blood-spattered pyjamas.

His wife's body was in a bedroom.

Mrs Richards told the jury on Monday that the house was in darkness except for a glimmer of light in the hallway so she shouted through the letterbox after getting no answer from the bell.

When Lumsden, a high-flying financial lawyer with Pinsent Biddle of Manchester, who admitted killing his wife "while suffering an abnormality of mind", opened the door wearing blood spattered pyjamas.

He admits killing his wife but denies murder.

Mrs Richards told the court: "It was awful. He was like a zombie. He was incoherent. He was shaking, extremely distressed and was sitting on the hall chair, slumped."

She asked her brother: "Is she dead?" before going upstairs to discover the gruesome scene of mum-of-two Alison Lumsden - her brother's wife - slumped at her bedroom dressing table. She called 999. She said: "He said something to the effect of Alison was going to leave him because she couldn't remain married to a cripple."

Timothy Richards told a jury that he remained in the car whilst his wife went inside the house.

He said: "My wife came out of the house and told me Alison was dead."

Mr Richards added that he "must have" gone into the house because he recalled "very vividly" seeing Mr Lumsden.

He said: "We got into the outer porch through the inner door. There was a chair immediately on the left and my brother-in-law was sitting on it.

"He was totally motionless, clearly totally traumatised and clearly immensely depressed - it was quite apparent that one should not really speak to him at that point.

"There was nothing one could say."

He added that he might have "put his left hand on top of his head" and that there was a "feeling of support".

The court heard how Alison Lumsden had started an affair with married father-of-two Roger Flint, a family friend who they knew for 15 years, who runs a nursery supplies business.

Alison had told her husband, who had been diagnosed with a muscle-wasting disorder which would eventually confine him to a wheelchair, she was going to leave him for her lover.

On the night of the killing she had dined with Mr Flint at a Plumley pub and returned home where she was brutally attacked.

The jury must now decide whether Lumsden is guilty of murder or manslaughter.

The case continues.