The Jamaican man charged with attempting to murder his wife took the stand in Supreme Court yesterday.

And Carlton Byfield, 25, told the court he could not remember striking his wife with a machete.

Byfield is also charged with unlawfully wounding Sherrylynn Byfield with the intent to do grievous bodily harm and unlawfully wounding her on February 8.

A week before the incident happened, his wife warned him not to say anything to her male friend because he had a lot of brothers, he said.

And during the week of the alleged attack, he continued, the man threatened him.

So when he heard on February 8 that the man was coming to their house to pick his wife up, he armed himself with the machete, said Mr. Byfield.

His wife had put the machete in the kitchen because she thought three girls were after her, he claimed.

When he got home from work on the day of the incident, he said, his wife's male friend called.

Mr. Byfield said he answered the phone, told him she was not home and hung up.

But Mrs. Byfield called the man back and arranged for him to come and pick her up, he continued.

He said he tried to talk to her about their marriage but she ignored him.

They then began to fight and she pushed and shouted at him, he said.

"I must have lost my self control,'' he told the court.

He said he did not know what happened next but realised she had been hurt when he saw her blood.

He said he held her close to him and kissed her and told her he loved her.

He said she asked him to call an ambulance, which he did, and this was when he noticed the cut on her thumb.

The next thing he said he remembered was talking to a woman at Hamilton Police Station and giving her the machete.

P.c. Hataya DeSilva testified that Mr. Byfield entered Hamilton Police Station carrying a machete and asking to be arrested.

And P.c. Ian Jamieson testified that he found Mrs. Byfield lying in a puddle of blood in the hallway of the couple's Princess Street apartment.

She had three lacerations measuring 15, 12 and ten centimetres each in her head and her thumb was almost completely amputated.

Mrs. Byfield testified that all she could remember was being home with her husband and fighting.

She said she felt him hit the back of her head with something but Mr. Byfield said he would never hit her from behind.

He told the court that his marriage had gotten worse and worse leading up to the incident.

He recalled an incident where his wife held a meat cleaver to his neck and threatened him after he accidentally kicked a football at her while playing with her son.

There were two other occasions, he said, when his wife had begun beating him for no apparent reason.

Mr. Byfield said his wife's former boyfriend used to come around the house and call her.

He added that he found two plane tickets in his wife's and a man's name but when he confronted her she told him it was not what he thought.

Mr. Byfield said he later called a hotel in Boston and was told that his wife had a reservation to stay there.

But he and his wife had never travelled together throughout their marriage, he said, while she went on trips to New York.

These raised his suspicions and then he found a letter she had written to a man there.

He read its contents and became very upset, he continued, because she had written about her and the man having sex and added that she could not wait to see him again.

On confronting her, Mr. Byfield said, he was told that the letter was not real and that she had only written it because she knew he would find it.

He said he stayed with her because he was still in love with her and he thought they could work things out.