A TERRIFIED Newport woman was kidnapped, kept on a bleak mountainside for 32 hours and threatened with a shotgun and stun gun - by her husband of 20 years.

Diane Barry thought she would not get out of the ordeal alive, Judge Christopher Llewellyn-Jones told Cardiff crown court yesterday.

The judge, who jailed her husband for four and a half years, said: "She was desperate. For a man to act in this way to a wife of 20 years is quite appalling."

Prosecutor Jonathan Austin said that her husband, Malcolm Barry, aged 60, of East Grove Road, admitted kidnapping his wife and falsely imprisoning her after taking her from her home in Newport at 5am on March 21 last year.

He had been served that day with divorce papers to end his marriage, the court heard.

Barry, who had four children with his wife, told her he had waited for her boyfriend to go to work, woke her, and told her: "Get up, you're coming with me."

He showed her an electrical stun gun and told her it was powerful enough to knock her out for 20 minutes.

Former steelworker Barry, who had been one of the rescuers at the Aberfan disaster, had a tent on The British, above Talywain, stocked with food supplies.

He drove his 43-year-old wife there and threatened her with an electric stun gun, and a sawn-off shotgun.

Barry told her: "You are making me do this, taking you up the mountain."

The court heard Barry nagged her constantly to rekindle their relationship and tried to have sex with her.

Mr Austin said: "Barry told her: 'I've planned this for ages.' He showed her tablets that he was going to use to take his own life."

He tried to get her to send a text message to her boyfriend, saying the relationship was over, but she "flatly refused" to send it.

By dusk he said he was going to take the tablets, but changed his mind.

On the Saturday morning she decided to get away but he grabbed her, threatened her with the shotgun and attempted to placate her.

Barry decided to drive her back to Newport, telling her to "forget the whole thing".

Mr Austin said Mrs Barry was terrified he would crash the car, and added: "She was scared throughout the experience and believed she would not get out alive."

When she arrived home at 3.30pm on Saturday, she was hysterical and distraught. Her family had earlier reported her missing.

Barry gave himself up when he walked into Maindee police station. In the car were found shotgun cartridges, a stun gun, a machete and a kukri.

Peter Heywood, representing Barry, said the shotgun had been thrown into the River Usk.

He said: "The whole episode has been a tragedy. He was married for 20 years but his wife had started another relationship. He really could not cope."