A woman was cleared yesterday of trying to murder her husband during a bondage sex session – but is now being investigated over the death of a former partner, police said.

Dena Thompson, 40, dubbed the "black widow" by detectives, was accused of trying to kill her husband, Richard, 42, with a baseball bat and a carving knife as he lay naked and bound on the bathroom floor.

Mr Thompson, who needed stitches above his eyes and in a shoulder wound, said the attack came during a sex game.

But his wife claimed she hit him twice with a baseball bat in self-defence after he found out she had stolen from him.

She was jailed for three years and nine months for 15 counts of deception, relating to thousands of pounds she stole from three past lovers after telling them lies including that she was suffering from cancer and was being stalked. Thompson, of Rustington, West Sussex, smiled as she was led from the dock at Lewes Crown Court.

Detectives said they would reopen an investigation into the 1994 death, apparently from an overdose, of Thompson's second husband, Julian Webb, whom she married bigamously.