A TAXI driver killed a love rival in a savage knife attack after finding his wife in an intimate encounter with him, a jury heard.

Solicitor Kathleen Kilic told Leeds Crown Court yesterday their two children were in her husband Oktay’s taxi at the time he launched his ferocious attack on Mark Berney and were screaming.

She described how she had gone for a drink with her former schoolfriend Mr Berney before driving to the layby near Ripley on the evening of August 3 last year.

But he had been tracking her using an app downloaded on his phone which he had placed in the boot of her vehicle and suddenly drove up and parked almost opposite them.

Her husband got out and went to the passenger door after shouting something like “what are you doing with my wife?”

The two men tussled over the door as Mr Berney tried to keep it closed.

“I thought he had just punched Mark in the chest and then I saw the blood and it wasn’t just a punch, then I saw the knife.”

She told the jury she could not move her husband and the attack continued. “I was screaming ‘stop it, stop’ it repeatedly.” But he just carried on.

When the attack stopped she could not get through on her phone so drove back on to the main road nearby to summon help but the jury has heard Mr Berney died from catastrophic blood loss due to his injuries.

Oktay Kilic, 40, of Kent Drive, Harrogate, denies the murder of Mr Berney, 44, from Knaresborough.

Mrs Kilic told the jury she met her Turkish husband through a mutual friend and they were in contact over the internet before she went out to Turkey on several occasions.

He moved to England to be with her and eventually began driving a taxi.

Initially they were happy but then he started to gamble and that led to arguments.

There was also violence on a couple of occasions and she decided she wanted the marriage to end.

She received a message last June from Mr Berney via Facebook.

A relationship then developed between them.

She said she wanted out of her marriage but her husband kept returning to her and “I was slightly scared of him.”

Under cross-examination by John McDermott, QC, defending her husband, Mrs Kilic denied her husband had stopped gambling by August last year.

Under cross-examination Mrs Kilic told the jury she had never had sexual intercourse with Mr Berney but that their relationship involved sexual contact.

She accepted she was performing a sex act on him in the car when her husband drove up that evening.

The trial continues.