Accused told police man was suicidal

A woman accused of murdering her boyfriend at her Telford home told police she watched him stab himself before he went to wash the knife he used, a court heard.

Wendy Walters said she left the room before returning to find Barry Evans lying in a pool of blood. She then called 999 for help.

But Mr William Davies QC, prosecuting at Birmingham Crown Court, claimed this was “simply rubbish”.

He said Walters, 42, stabbed Mr Evans forcefully and repeatedly, ripping off his shirt pocket in the attack, after the pair rowed at her home in Bembridge, Brookside.

Walters denies murdering 45-year-old Mr Evans, of Hurleybrook Way, Leegomery, Telford, on July 7 last year.

Mr Davies said the pair, who had an on/off relationship, were together in Walters’s flat that morning before she went shopping.

He said Mr Evans, a “sad character” who drank too much, took drugs and had some history of self-harm, was drunk at the time.

Walters returned that afternoon when, it is alleged, she stabbed Mr Evans five times in the chest and three times in the back.

She called emergency services, claiming Mr Evans had stabbed himself, but paramedics were unable to save him.

Mr Davies said she persisted with her original account when questioned.

She claimed Mr Evans told her before she went shopping he was going to kill himself because of trouble with his mother and father.

Mr Davies told the jury: “She stuck with this account but the prosecution says it’s simply rubbish.”

The hearing continues.