Cleric Yip Kai-ming, 47, admits manslaughter but denies murdering Ng Kwai- fong, 39, on September 13 last year.

Senior assistant director of public prosecutions Francis Lo Hing-cheung said Yip and Ng were both married and had been carrying on an extra-marital affair for some time.

Yip, a deacon of the Hong Kong Deaf People's Christian Church in Kowloon City, has two children. Ng also has two children.

Their respective spouses are also deaf and mute, the court was told.

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Yip and Ng knew each other for years, having met while studying at a school for the deaf. They had attended the same church regularly since 1989 and, over the years, their relationship became intimate.

On September 13 last year, Ng told her husband she would be visiting an elderly woman in Tai Po and allowed him to take their two children to Western District. She was expected to join them there to have dinner with her family, which lives in Western.

But she did not turn up.

When the husband and their children returned to their home in Shun Chui Estate in Sha Tin at about 10pm, they found Ng lying in a pool of blood and called an ambulance.

There were several stab wounds on Ng's body. She was not breathing and did not have a pulse.

Three days later, Yip confessed to a church minister that he had visited and killed Ng on September 13.

He told the minister he did so after she pestered him to divorce his wife and marry her.

"Upon seeing Mr Ko [the minister], the defendant burst into tears and admitted killing Ng Kwai-fong," prosecutor Lo told the court.

After his confession to the minister, Yip agreed to turn himself in to the police.

Yip agreed to a plea of manslaughter but this was not accepted by the prosecution.

The court has arranged a sign-language specialist to help Yip and his counsel.

The hearing before Court of First Instance Judge Michael McMahon continues today.