A TOP woman investment manager has spoken for the first time of her torment after her house-husband was stabbed to death by a robber in South Africa.

British fund boss Vivienne Taberer, 52, told how her life was changed forever when stay-at-home dad Daniel Mardell was brutally killed during a break-in.

Daniel, 42, was knifed in the face and chest by a thug he caught rifling through his wallet in the kitchen of the family’s luxury home in Cape Town.

Vicious raider Logan Petersen, 27, grabbed a nearby kitchen knife and attacked the dad who had confronted him shouting “get the f*** out of my house.”

Vivienne - who split her time between working in London and her family in South Africa - shielded her young sons from the horror as Daniel lay dying.

And she poured out her heart in a victim impact statement yesterday after violent local jailbird Petersen was found guilty of murdering the dad for just £50 and his watch.

She said: “I managed to shield my two sons from seeing their father dying on our living room floor by getting the boys to lock themselves in their bedroom and stay there.

“I then tried to stop Dan’s bleeding and get an ambulance to the scene.

“But with Dan not responsive and running back and forth up and down the stairs to keep the boys inside it meant that I was not with him when he died.

“The senselessness and brutality of the events that unfolded will live with me forever and have a profound impact on both myself and my two sons Joshua and Luke, who were nine and seven when Dan was murdered.

“They were robbed not only of their father but their primary caregiver, while I lost the man who was my lifelong partner.

“As a family we now have to deal with a horrible new reality.”

Vivienne - a senior Investec Asset Management portfolio manager - told how the murder wrecked her breadwinner role shuttling between Cape Town and London.

She had been with Daniel, from Bexley, South East London, for the past 16 years.

She added: “It is heartbreaking for me to see and difficult to try and stay strong for them but still allow themselves and myself the space to grieve.”

Petersen - who was out on parole under correctional supervision had served less than two months of his nine-month sentence for a previous robbery.

Petersen, 27, has only now been brought to justice for the brutal killing in October 2015.

He showed no remorse as he was ordered to be caged in Cape Town’s hellhole Pollsmoor Prison for at least 25 years.