A SUFFOLK thatcher has denied having an affair with a former pub landlady who was allegedly stabbed to death by her jealous husband.Steven Pye told a jury at Ipswich Crown Court that he had told Sharon Green in a text that he loved her but denied they had a sexual relationship and had spent nights together.

A SUFFOLK thatcher has denied having an affair with a former pub landlady who was allegedly stabbed to death by her jealous husband.

Steven Pye told a jury at Ipswich Crown Court that he had told Sharon Green in a text that he loved her but denied they had a sexual relationship and had spent nights together.

Giving evidence on the second day of the trial of Mrs Green's husband Paul Green, who has denied murder, Mr Pye said he had got to know the couple when he did some work on the thatched roof of their cottage in Marlesford in April and May last year.

He said he had grown to like 53-year-old Mrs Green, who he described as an outgoing and bubbly person, 'more and more' and said that when he first told her about his feelings she had laughed it off.

Mr Pye, a bachelor who is in his sixties, said that on one occasion they had called at his house near Bramford and after she commented on the state of his garden they had agreed he would pay her �40 a day to tidy it up for him.

He accepted that he and Mrs Green had exchanged text messages and at one stage he had exceeded the 200 free text limit on his phone.

However he claimed that the messages were mainly about their gardens and television programmes they had been watching and he claimed that a text message which said 'He know's nothing' referred to a mechanic who had looked at Mrs Green's car and was not a reference to her husband.

Cross-examined by Brian Reece, for Paul Green, Mr Pye accepted that his nick-name for Mrs Green had been 'Penelope Pitstop' because she was a fast driver and that she called him 'Mr Pye'.

Asked about a text message from him which said 'I'm obsessed with you Penelope Pitstop' Mr Pye said he couldn't remember it.

Asked by Mr Reece if he had been in a sexual relationship with Mrs Green, Mr Pye replied, 'No. No. Absoutely not. No. That's not the case. She wouldn't have done that and I wouldn't have done that.'

Asked why Mrs Green had sent him a poem in which she mentioned being in his arms Mr Pye said, 'I don't know why because she wasn't.'

He also denied that Mrs Green had wanted to send him pictures of herself with nothing on. 'I wouldn't have thought she would do that. I certainly don't remember pictures like that,' he said.

It has been alleged that Green, who lived with his wife at the former Old Bell pub at Marlesford, stabbed her five times in the chest with a bayonet because he thought she was having an affair with Mr Pye.

The court has heard that on the morning of November 20 last year when his wife's body was discovered in their bedroom Green had driven his car into a tree and had told a police officer that he had been trying to kill himself. It is also alleged that after he was taken to hospital for treatment for his injuries he told a police officer. 'I know what I've done. She was having an affair and I've had enough.'

The court has heard that the couple bought the Old Bell pub ten years ago but had converted it into a private residence when the business closed four years later.

The trial continues today.