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Leeds murder trial jury told of fight in kitchen
A woman on trial for murder told a jury she fatally stabbed her friend’s boyfriend after he attacked her with a hockey stick.
Janine Birch, 43, demonstrated to a court the moment she reached for a knife after she claims Martin Wheelhouse pinned her up against a cooker in the kitchen of his girlfriend’s home and struck her on the shoulder with a stick.
Giving evidence, Birch described reaching behind her to grab the knife before swinging at Mr Wheelhouse. Her barrister Alistair McDonald asked: “Why were you swinging at him?”
She replied: “Because he had just hit me with the bat. If he had not started and just left it wouldn’t have happened.” Mr McDonald asked: “When you took the knife in your hand and did what you showed us, why did you do that?” Birch answered: “Because I just wanted Martin to get away from me and leave me alone. I just remember feeling that I couldn’t get away, that he was just there in front of me.”
She added: “My heart was pumping really, really fast. I was like panicking. I just thought that he was going to really, really hurt me.”
Birch also told the jury Mr Wheelhouse had burst into the bedroom in an earlier confrontation and hit her across the knee with the hockey stick. She denies murdering Mr Wheelhouse on August 16 last year at the house on Portland Road, Wortley, Leeds. She claims she acted in self defence.
The prosecution claims Birch inflicted the knife wound and kicked and stamped on Mr Wheelhouse as he lay wounded on the kitchen floor as partner, Alexine Cowell, tried to give him first aid. The court has been played a recording of a 999 call in which Birch appears to be shouting abuse at Mr Wheelhouse. Mr McDonald said: “Do you accept you stood on him?” Birch replied: “Yes, that’s true.” She added: “I was trying to get over him and I stood on him.” The barrister asked Birch why she was shouting abuse at Mr Wheelhouse as he lay injured. She said: “I think when I stabbed Martin I just lost it. I was angry with him.” She added: “They are terrible things what I said.”
When asked by Me McDonald how she know felt about what she had said, Birch replied: I was horrified.”
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 8 C to 21 C
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