THE best friend of a man who died after his wife drove onto a pavement in Lowestoft and struck him with the family car was this week jailed after threatening to kill her.

Mark Unwin was 'deeply affected' by Anthony Knox's death and, after hearing that his wife Suzanne Knox had been cleared by a jury of causing death by dangerous driving, he went to her Lowestoft home armed with a double-sided axe and a martial arts knife because he thought she had 'got away with it,' Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Godfried Duah, prosecuting, said that at about midnight on October 11, Mrs Knox was at her home in Lowestoft, with her two children and her father when Unwin knocked at the door.

Unwin challenged her about things said at her trial in September and comments she made to him at her husband's funeral, and be became increasingly agitated.

He told Mrs Knox: 'If I see you on the street I'm going to kill you', Mr Duah said.

He then pulled out a double-sided axe and a martial arts throwing knife.

Unwin was arrested shortly after leaving the house and told police he had thrown the knife and axe away.

Mr Duah said that during police interviews Unwin had been upset and remorseful and told officers he had just wanted to scare Mrs Knox because he was unhappy at what had happened at her trial.

Unwin, 30, of Lakeland Drive, Lowestoft, pleaded guilty to two offences of possessing offensive weapons, possessing a knife and using threatening words and behaviour.

Jailing him for 16 months on Tuesday, Judge John Holt said Unwin had considered that Mrs Knox had 'got away with it' after she was cleared of causing her husband's death by dangerous driving and was sentenced for a less serious offence of causing his death by careless driving, which she had admitted.

Lori Tucker, for Unwin, said Anthony Knox had been her client's best friend and although he had remained on good terms with Mrs Knox following her husband's death, he became upset after reading newspaper reports of her trial which he felt were at odds with things she had told him.

'His view was that she had got away it and he wanted her to be frightened,' said Mrs Tucker.

Last month at Ipswich Crown Court, Suzanne Knox, 26, was given a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, banned from driving for one year and ordered to do 100 hours' unpaid work in the community for causing her 30-year-old husband's death by careless driving.