Berrow death: Pensioner faces trial for killing husband

The incident took place at the couples' home in Berrow

A 66-year-old who stabbed her husband told a 999 operator "I thought I'd get his heart but he hasn't got one", a court has heard.

Penelope Jackson attacked her husband David in the kitchen of their home in Berrow, Somerset, in February.

She had been married to the 78-year-old, who died at the scene, for 24 years.

A jury at Bristol Crown Court heard Mrs Jackson told a call handler her husband was "bleeding to death with any luck".

On the first day of her murder trial, the court was told Mr Jackson called the emergency services himself on 13 February after he was stabbed.

He said his wife had stabbed him, and could be heard screaming in pain as she allegedly drove the knife into him for the final time.

Mrs Jackson, who denies murder, then took over the call, saying: "I've killed my husband, or tried to, because I've had enough."

'I'm not helping him'

Mrs Jackson repeatedly refused to help the victim when a 999 call handler asked her to take steps to stem the bleeding.

Prosecutor Christopher Quinlan QC said: "(Jackson) was calm and resolute and perhaps in places resigned and, in her words, not mine, 'compos mentis'."

In an 18-minute phone call while police and paramedics headed for the house on Parsonage Road, she said: "I thought I'd got his heart but he hasn't got one, then twice in the abdomen."

Mr Quinlan said: "(Jackson) will accept (Mr Jackson's) unlawful killing or his manslaughter but she denies her guilt properly answers his murder."

In the call, which was played in full to the jury, Jackson can be heard calmly telling the operator her husband is "moaning on the kitchen floor", adding "he's got some holes in him".

When she is asked to pass him a clean dry cloth, she replies: "I'm not helping him, the paramedics can help him but I'm not."

Mrs Jackson tells the call handler she stabbed her husband because "he thought I couldn't go through with it".

"I'll end up in prison, which is preferable to my life right now," she says.

When the call handler tells Mrs Jackson "can you try and stop the bleeding because we don't want him to die", she replies "I do".

The court heard that the victim was Mrs Jackson's fourth husband and she was his third wife, and that they had married in 1996.

Relationship difficulties

In late December 2020, police were called to their address following a row over a TV remote control.

Mrs Jackson told officers she had locked her husband in their conservatory so he would "calm down" but that he had smashed his way out with a poker.

She claimed he had been acting out of character following an operation to replace the battery in a deep brain implant used to manage a condition that caused his hands and limbs to tremble.

Mr Quinlan told the jury they would hear about difficulties in the Jacksons' relationship, but added: "There is a difference, though, between a relationship with some occasional difficulties and one that is abusive and coercive and controlling.

"I use these words because these are the words Penelope Jackson used to describe her relationship with David Jackson - he was abusive, she said, he was controlling and he coerced her."

The trial, expected to last three weeks, continues.