FORMER radio DJ Suzie McGuire tried to kill herself because prosecutors refused to abandon a case in which she was accused of assaulting her husband, it has been claimed in court.

The former Clyde 1 presenter told Paisley Sheriff Court she made the suicide bid last year.

It happened after allegations emerged that she had knocked Derek Mitchell down a flight of stairs and stamped on his head.

The case against the 45-year-old mother-of-four is on hold due to the continuing trial of Mr Mitchell on charges of assaulting Ms McGuire, breach of the peace and following her over a seven-month period last year.

Giving evidence against him, Ms McGuire said she took a cocktail of pills and alcohol so she could escape the "life of terror" she was living because of his "vicious beatings."

However, it was claimed by Mr Mitchell's lawyer, Billy Lavelle, that the real reason she tried to take her own life was because prosecutors refused to drop the case against her altogether.

She denied asking Mr Mitchell, an accountant, to get the charges against her dropped, but added she had been to see prosecutors in Paisley "on a number of occasions to try and put it to an end".

Ms McGuire told the court her suicide attempt occurred in March 2013, not April as she had previously said.

Ms McGuire said she went to a wooded area near her home in Eaglesham, East Renfrewshire, but was saved from taking her life after Mr Mitchell found her.

She told court: "I told him I'd had enough, I couldn't take any more. He drove round and round and up and down the village until he found me."

In addition to taking pills, Ms McGuire said she drank vodka and became unconscious before waking up in hospital.

Mr Lavelle said Mr Mitchell had told the former DJ she should go to hospital when she told him she planned to kill herself.

But she said she could not remember what had happened before she woke up at Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride.

Under cross-examination, Mr Lavelle suggested: "The real reason you took that course of action was because the fiscal's office here were not at that point dropping any charges against you."

Ms McGuire replied: "I'm appalled, sir. I survived that, I've survived much worse and I'll survive this.

"I had nothing left to give and I felt trapped. I was hanging by a thread and that thread was gone. I'm dealing with much more issues than that now and I'm still standing. I thought nobody would miss me; I thought I wasn't important enough to stick around."

She added: "There was nowhere else to go but to take the final exit. It's quite disrespectful to say that to someone who has been in such a bad place they have tried to kill themselves and leave their children without a mum."

Ms McGuire, who quit her job on Clyde 1's drivetime show in September, said she believed the charges against her "would work themselves out".

She is alleged to have punched and kicked Mr Mitchell's head and body and hit him with household items at the family home in December 2012.

Ms McGuire also told the court her husband had got "very drunk" on lager at a birthday party at home for one of her ­children on July 20 last year.

She described him as behaving "like a bull in a China shop" and alleged he broke furniture, ripped a baby gate off the wall, was sick on carpets and fell asleep on the child's presents.

Ms McGuire breathed a sigh of relief as she was told by Sheriff Susan Sinclair her evidence was over.

She had spent four days in the witness box.

Mr Mitchell denies the charges and the trial continues.