Julie Clifton, an intensive care nurse, used a large pick axe to smash the glass in the front door of the Pemberton house and then climbed in through the hole, a court

Her husband, Paul, helped his children and girlfriend, Jennifer Morris, get downstairs and out of the back door and they hid in the back garden, said Karen Brooks, prosecuting.

Clifton stole a handbag belonging to the other woman and used the pick axe to smash the rear window of Mrs Morris' Vauxhall Corsa before going back inside the house.
The police arrived at 7am and she was arrested.

Liverpool Crown Court heard the incident began the previous evening when she began texting her husband.
Clifton, 40, of The Alder, Standish Lower Ground, Wigan, pleaded guilty to burglary and criminal damage.

After hearing that she has no previous convictions and had been suffering from depression after her marriage broke down and her father died, Judge Brian Lewis placed her under supervision for two years on condition she attends an alcohol misuse programme and carries out 180 hours' unpaid work.

He said: "Everybody in the house must have been terrified at what was happening."

Judge Lewis said that her rampage had been "spiteful" as shown by her stealing the handbag and smashing the car causing £800 worth of damage.

Alison Mather, defending, said that she had put her nursing career on hold after meeting her husband and they married but she claims there were difficulties from the outset.

She began suffering from depression but, after the birth of their second daughter, now 10, she qualified as an intensive care nurse. Her father died in February.

The combination of her bereavement and learning that her husband had another woman led her to the brink of a breakdown and she was drinking to excess, said Miss Mather.

The night of the incident both daughters were staying with her husband. After being released from hospital after apparently trying to kill herself, she went to his home and the offences occurred.