A father has described the moment he battered his girlfriend to death with a hammer claiming he feared she would leave.

Asad Niazi killed Charito ‘Che’ Cruz, 37, at the home they rented in Cambridge Road, Kingston, having discovered she had rekindled an affair with a former lover after going through messages on a computer.

Mr Niazi, 29, admits manslaughter but denies murder on the grounds he was suffering from severe depression at the time of the attack on September 26, 2011.

An Old Bailey jury heard last Friday how he was driven to overdose and was taken to hospital in an ambulance following weeks of arguments with Miss Cruz, a care home worker.

She had been speaking to and texting married ex-boyfriend Michael Gabriel in front of Mr Niazi.

He said: “I felt really, really sad. I had no face to show no-one. I had the intention of taking my life for that woman.

"She told me ‘you are a coward. You have proven to me that you are a coward’.

"She was planning to see him, with my child, behind my back.

"He had the visa, car and house. I have nothing except my daughter."

He described a heated argument that he said built up between the pair on the night with Miss Cruz throwing his clothes out of their cupboard and on to the bed.

He said: “I was raging. She did not want to listen. I said ‘just give me one more chance. I can’t live without you both. Don’t take my daughter away from me’.

“I just don’t know what sparked in me that moment. It kept building up. She kept saying the wrong words at the wrong time – I am not a good father.

"I don’t deserve to be in the family. She is ashamed of me. I will not get to stay in the UK.

"It kept repeating. I felt destroyed.

“This was the first time I ever laid a hand on her and I never got the chance to say sorry.

I just don’t know what happened. I am not a violent person. I was shocked by own actions.

“I planned to talk to her, to reconcile with her. I had no intention to hurt her. I only wanted to fix our relationship.

"Out of the blue all I can remember – I don’t know why I am hitting her or what I am doing."

He described how he picked up their two-year old daughter and kissed her on her forehead moments after realising what he had done.

But prosecutor John Rees said: “She cheated on you. You thought she deserved it. So you attacked her with a hammer.

"Now you are trying to lessen the damage by saying you lost control.

“If you could not have her, you were not going to let anybody else have her.

“She cheated on you – she deserved it. That’s what this case is all about in one line.”

The couple had stopped their sexual relationship about a month before the incident and Mr Niazi, who sought solace in prayer weeks before, denied showing his young daughter pornography.

The court heard in the days leading up to the fatal argument Mr Niazi had been looking at websites to help calm him down as well as sites on how to win back a lover.

He was also found to be looking at sites to buy a new iPhone after smashing up Miss Cruz’s phone days before, the jury heard.

He met with psychiatric nurses from Kingston Hospital in September 2011 but said the meeting “stressed” him as they picked up a number of phone calls during the visit.

Recalling the attack, Mr Niazi’s voice quivered and he appeared to be crying as he said: “I don’t know why I was hitting. I do get flashbacks. Every night I think about it.

“How did I get to that point? I just don’t know. I don’t hear voices. I don’t hear my child crying. I have no idea how I got the hammer in my hand.

“I just could not understand why I am hitting the person I love the most.”

The trial continues.