CAMPAIGNERS last night accused the courts of failing to grasp the reality of domestic violence after a disabled woman who killed her abusive husband was jailed for two years.

The judge who presided over the case expressed shock at the details of violence, saying it was possibly the most severe incident of domestic abuse he had known.

However, Lord Dawson told Margaret Murray, 38 - classed as disabled following a back injury in 1993 - that she should not have taken the law into her own hands and that imprisonment would deter others from doing so.

There were gasps from Murray's family at the High Court in Edinburgh when the judge rejected a plea to put her on probation and allow her to receive psychological help.

Last night, Dorothy Fall, of Scottish Women's Aid, said that battered women syndrome meant that women suffered abuse for long periods and when they did fight back, the act was frequently spontaneous.

She said: ''We cannot condone someone taking a life. But it is unbelievable that a judge could send her to jail and at the same time acknowledge the years of suffering she endured and that she was in fear for her life.''

The court had been told Murray feared her life was in danger when she stabbed husband, Colin, 37, through the heart at Raeburn Meadow, Selkirk.

After the fatal stabbing on September 17 last year, Murray was accused of murder but her plea to a lesser charge of culpable homicide was accepted.

On the day of the death, Murray had phoned her brother to tell him of a row and asked him to come round ''to calm things down''. Soon afterwards, she made a 999 call pleading for an ambulance and added: ''I think you should bring the police as well.''

Mr Murray was taken to hospital but found to have died from a single stab wound. Police who later interviewed the distraught mother-of-two were told: ''He was strangling me. I have killed him. I loved him.''

Murray had been seen with black eyes and bruises on her face and her husband had previously been charged with assaulting her in November 1998 and later admonished. The couple, who were married in 1994, were both heavy drinkers.

Jailing her yesterday, Lord Dawson said Murray had suffered ''persistent and constant abuse'' and did not propose to give details of the abuse in court, to save embarrassment.

He added: ''This is possibly the worst example of how a husband can mistreat a wife that I have ever heard of.'' He said he had explored every option open to him in dealing with the case but, except in the most exceptional circumstances, culpable homicide meant prison.