A 70-year-old woman who stabbed her husband in the back and then watched as he died has been jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 17 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Christine Rawle stabbed Ian Rawle, 72, after a row at their remote bungalow in Devon in August 2022.
Judge James Adkin told Rawle she “violently thrust” a knife with a 12.5in blade into her husband’s back, intending to kill him.
Exeter Crown Court previously heard Mr Rawle then followed his wife of 27 years for 100 yards telling her to remove the knife, before collapsing and dying from the wound.
The judge told Rawle: “You said to the police that you were frightened of your husband. But he was a 72-year-old man with a knife in his back. He wanted you to help him. But it seems to me you refused to do so.”
During the trial, Rawle claimed she had been the victim of coercive and controlling behaviour – suffering years of physical and psychological abuse from her husband.
She pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder, claiming she was acting in self-defence, but was convicted of the charge by a unanimous jury.
Judge Adkin told Rawle: “Ian was not perfect. The evidence showed that he was obstinate, sometimes grumpy, he could shout, he was stuck in his ways and he was old-fashioned in terms of how he wanted a relationship with his wife. But he was in no way the serial domestic abuser you sought to portray him as.”
He added: “The main reason you killed your husband was that you have an ungovernable temper.”
During the trial prosecutors compared the couple to the bickering characters from Roald Dahl’s The Twits and said they would often slap and push each other.
In footage released by Devon and Cornwall Police showing Rawle being arrested, she is heard in the back of the police van saying: “He was so cruel.”
She continues: “How can you love someone. How can you do everything for someone and they are so nasty to you.”
Later in the footage, Rawle is heard saying: “He will come and get me and he will kill me.”
Barrister Sean Brunton KC said police had visited the couple several times over the years and Rawle had allegedly stabbed her husband twice before – once with a knife and another time with a fork.
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A witness said Rawle would brag about putting Viagra in her husband’s tea or chilli powder in his underpants – and about occasionally wiping her backside with his ties, out of spite or as a joke.
The killing is said to have taken place in a “fit of temper” at the couple’s £800,000 home near Braunton after they argued about selling a piece of land.
Source Agencies
