A CHURCH deacon in Enfield who plotted to kill his wife posed a “real and imminent” danger, the detective who arrested him said.

Graeme Dust, 46, was jailed for six years on Friday after admitting at the Old Bailey to lacing his wife Nina's hot chocolate with sleeping pills, with a plan to take her home and gas her.

The committed churchgoer, who is a window cleaner by trade, was heard to have tried to hire a hit man to murder his wife and make it appear as a suicide or accident. However, the “hit man” turned out to be an undercover police officer.

Detective Sergeant Princy Madanayake, who led the operation to arrest Dust, said: “When a member of the public raised their concerns to police in Enfield, they immediately recognised the very real and imminent danger to Nina Dust and called in the Specialist Crime Directorate's Special Projects Team to combat this threat.

“We instigated an immediate response using the most appropriate techniques to protect Nina and gather irrefutable evidence against her husband."

The court heard how Dust, of Holmwood Road, was caught on tape arranging to pay £5,000 for his wife to be killed.

Although he finished the meeting, at an athletics site in Pickett's Lock, by agreeing to think it over, police sprung into action to protect Mrs Dust, 46, from being hurt.

Dust has been forgiven by his wife for his actions, between October last year and March this year, when he was clinically depressed, and they are planning to resume their marriage on his release from prison.

He was given a two-year jail term for trying to poison his wife, and a consecutive four-year sentence for soliciting murder.