Jeremy Howe writes book about his wife Elizabeth's murder in 1992

Lecturer Elizabeth Howe’s throat was slit by an Open University student on the first day of a summer school held on the University of York campus in July 1992.

Her husband, Jeremy, tells in the book how the shocking news of her murder was broken to him, how police in York initially treated him like a suspect and how he had to break the news of their mother’s death to their daughters, Lucy and Jessica, then four and six.

Mr Howe, former head of drama at BBC Radio 3, whose book is being serialised by a national newspaper, said he had been left in sole charge of their daughters for a week while his wife, 34, went to the summer school. He was woken in the middle of the first night by a policeman banging on the door, who told him his wife was dead. He called the York officer handling the case a “very matter-of-fact Yorkshireman” who told him Dr Howe had been found dead in her room on campus at about 6pm, with her throat slit, apparently the victim of a random attack by an OU student “tanked up on vodka and drugs.”

He writes: “Lizzie, one of the most blameless people I’ve ever met, just happened to be the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. And now she is dead. Not dead – murdered.” He says he then collapsed on the floor, sobbing.

After going to York and identifying his wife’s body, two burly policemen in plain clothes took it in turns to question him – “soft cop, hard cop”.

“I’m being treated as a suspect! The worst day in my life has just got a whole lot more nightmarish.’ Robin Pask, of Horwich, Lancashire, was sent to Ashworth Hospital in 1996 after admitting manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. A court heard he was suffering from both a depressive illness and a psychopathic disorder and it was unlikely he would ever be released.

•Mummydaddy, by Jeremy Howe, will be published by Pan Macmillan on March 1.