A man has been found guilty of murdering his wife by deliberately steering their pick-up truck off the M1 motorway.

Ian and Tracy Walters were driving home from a "make-or-break" week away when their Mitsubishi L200 crashed into a line of trees near Markfield, Leicestershire.

Mrs Walters, from Swindon, Wiltshire, died in hospital two days after the collision on 21 March last year.

Walters, a church treasurer and driving test examiner, told a six-week trial at Leicester Crown Court that he had no memory of the two hours and 40 minutes leading up to the crash.

He told jurors he could not think of any "reasonable reason" why his vehicle had left the M1 at up to 84mph.

Witnesses at the trial likened the crash, which sent items of luggage flying into the air, to a small explosion.

The prosecution claimed that Walters, who was seriously injured in the crash, acted out of anger after his wife demanded a divorce following a string of arguments.

A police inquiry established that Walters and his wife, who married in Cyprus in 2012, had sought counselling after a string of rows caused by his unreasonable sexual demands.

He was charged with murder after CCTV footage showed his vehicle moving from the M1's middle lane to the hard shoulder moments before it crashed.

During the trial it emerged that Mrs Walters, 48, sent a series of urgent text messages to relatives in the run-up to the killing.

In one of the "panicked" texts, she wrote: "He's done it again. He's hurt my back. Don't want to aggravate him."

In another, sent around 55 minutes before the L200 left the road at 12.40pm, she told her son: "He's driving and volatile. I need him arrested when we get back."

The trial also heard that Walters was questioned over claims of domestic abuse a week before the murder.