Berrow death: Wife says she loved husband she stabbed

Penelope Jackson told her trial her husband David was often violent towards her

A woman accused of murdering her husband following a row at a birthday meal said she did not mean to kill him.

Penelope Jackson, 66, has admitted the manslaughter of her husband David, 78, but denies his murder.

She said he had "ruined" her special occasion by belittling her during the family celebration.

"He loved me, and I loved him and its awful about what happened," she told Bristol Crown Court.

Mrs Jackson stabbed her husband three times with a kitchen knife at their home in Berrow in February.

She claimed that when her husband, a retired lieutenant colonel, called her "pathetic" and told her to go back to bed after she confronted him about the meal, she slashed him with the knife, causing a wound to his chest.

The stabbing took place at the couple's home in Berrow

Mr Jackson called the emergency services to summon help and, during a recording of that call, Mrs Jackson could be heard stabbing her husband twice more.

When police and ambulance crews arrived at their bungalow on the evening of 13 February, Mr Jackson was discovered in the kitchen with fatal knife wounds.

Breaking down in tears Mrs Jackson told the jury: "I don't know what happened. I didn't want to kill him. I did it, I am sorry.

"I didn't want him to die."

Christopher Quinlan QC, prosecuting, asked Mrs Jackson about the transcript of the 999 call in which she told the operator she would not help her husband.

She told the jury she accepted the contents of the transcript but could not remember saying it.

"I lost control, that's the reality but I actually don't remember doing it, or talking about this," she said.

The jury watched the body-worn footage from the officers who arrested Mrs Jackson, in which she told them she "should have stabbed him a bit more".

Mr Quinlan asked: "At that moment you meant every word of it?"

Mrs Jackson replied: "I don't remember saying it, I just remember being cold."