Thakane Mtetwa's husband of 19 years, Sabelo Mtetwa, was murdered in 1992, Sheffield Crown Court heard on the opening day of her defence.

The 61-year-old nurse denies killing Elsie Skelton during a night shift at Maltby's Layden Court Nursing Home.

And on Monday - the fifth day of the trial - the jury heard about Mtetwa's 38-year medical background preceding the incident last October.

"A friend of mine came over here two years before me," she said after being sworn in on Monday afternoon. "She told me that the grass was greener."

"Because my children were no longer that young I could leave them. There were employment agencies in South Africa with liased with this country."

Her job at Layden Court was sorted before Mtetwa left her homeland in November 2005.

Born to teacher parents in 1946, she started her education just as apartheid began to grip South Africa. Too young to take a scholarship to study in the US, Mtetwa began her nursing career.

"I was about 18-and-a-half years when I started training," she told the court. "I went to a training hospital and the first qualification I got was after four years, in general medicine."

The defendant went on to specialise in midwifery and psychiatric nursing while also raising five children – three her own, one adopted and one from Sabelo's first marriage.

Defending counsel Jeremy Baker QC revealed several 'misunderstandings' arising from a language problem while cross-examining prosecution witnesses last week.

When his client said she and a colleague had been washing Mrs Skelton when she died, Mr Baker said she meant they were about to wash her.

And in saying Mrs Skelton had 'collapsed', she meant that she had given her last breath, the jury were told.

Mtetwa learned English from a young age through the Methodist Church, but it is her third language after Xhosa and Sesotho.

"I would say I am relatively fluent in English," she said. "But there are certain words which at times don't have the meaning I thought they had. And accents sometimes beat me."

The trial continues.