Horse trainer who killed husband had stabbed him before'

A HORSE trainer who plunged a knife four inches into her husband's back had stabbed him before, a murder trial heard yesterday.

- Tom Bevan

Christine Rawle, 70, asked Ian, 72, her husband of 27 years, to help her muck out the horses before knifing him while on the phone to her daughter, the jury was told.

The court heard that police had previously been called to the couple's home in the 1990s after she stabbed Ian in the chest

Sean Brunton KC, prosecuting, said after the fatal attack in August 2022 Rawle told her daughter: "I've stabbed him." The daughter hung up and called emergency services, meanwhile Rawle phoned a friend, asking her to "sort her dogs out", Exeter Crown Court heard.

Collapses

She had run off shouting "Help me! Help me!" as lan followed, asking her to remove the knife, Mr Brunton said.

He said: "At some point, he collapses in the garden, she doesn't take the knife out straight away.