A woman stabbed her husband to death after a row over serving bubble and squeak with steak on her birthday, a court has heard.
Penelope Jackson, 66, stabbed David Jackson, 78, three times with a kitchen knife, hours after they quarrelled during a family meal to celebrate her birthday.
Jackson said her husband got angry because she had made bubble and squeak vegetables to have alongside the expensive meal their daughter had purchased to celebrate the day.
She told jurors at Bristol Crown Court: ‘I was just horrified – it was the eyes again – they turned on a sixpence.
‘I was absolutely horrified that he was being so nasty. The conversation which had been loud and chatty, just died.
‘I said don’t do this again and started to cry and I went to the side and I was crying quietly.’
Jackson said she felt ‘in bits’ and that her whole birthday was being ‘ruined’ over bubble and squeak.
She said the row ‘wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back but it was in the bundle’.
After the argument, Jackson said she had taken a kitchen knife to her bedroom intending to use it to take her own life but instead walked into her husband’s bedroom to speak to him.
She said: ‘I wanted him to say, “I am sorry, Pen”. He didn’t, he just said, “For God’s sake you are pathetic, get on with it and go back to bed”.
‘It was just like, “Pass the sugar”. I was in utter despair. I looked at him and said, “I have done nothing wrong, admit you are sorry”.’
Jackson admits manslaughter of the retired lieutenant colonel but denies murder, saying he was coercive and controlling and also physically violent towards her.
Gesticulating to the jury with her hand to show how she stabbed her husband on the evening of February 13 at their home in Berrow, Somerset, Jackson said: ‘I just lost it. I was in utter despair, I just lost control.’
Fighting back tears she said she ‘didn’t know why’ she had acted as she did and had ‘not been violent’ in her life.
The court heard that Jackson wrote a note confessing to stabbing her husband.
Jackson said her husband put his face right into hers as he spoke to the 999 call handler.
She added: ‘It was almost a look of delight. He was goading and horrible and said I was pathetic and couldn’t do it right.’
Again, showing the jury how she stabbed her husband, Jackson said: ‘I stabbed him again and he said, “she’s done it again”.’
Clare Wade QC, defending, asked Jackson: ‘When you stabbed him, did you intend to kill him?’
She replied: ‘I didn’t intend to kill him. I just lost all control – I just wasn’t even there.
‘My mind… I wasn’t angry I had just had enough and lost the plot. I just lost control – I couldn’t take anymore.’
She said throughout their 24 years of marriage Mr Jackson was very controlling, telling her what she could and could not watch on the television.
She also said he would not like her doing jigsaw puzzles or listening to The Archers daily on Radio 4.
Jackson said that when the country went into lockdown in March 2020 her social life stopped and she was always at home with her husband.
She said: ‘I didn’t know when he woke up if I was going to be with nice David or ratty David who would put the dinner down the waste disposal.’
Jackson told the jury she was subjected to ‘pushing, shouting and shaking’ throughout their marriage, her husband would be sexually violent and throw things, be nasty and belittling.
She added: ‘It makes me feel ashamed that I have done what I have done.
‘But it also makes me ashamed that I didn’t have the wherewithal to say this is happening and I am going to leave.’
The trial continues.
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