21 September 2023 , 18:07
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A woman who claimed she accidentally stabbed her husband in the chest with a kitchen knife has been found guilty of his murder.
Teresa Hanson, 54, fatally wounded Paul Hanson in the kitchen of their home in West Cowick, East Yorkshire, three days after Christmas last year. She was today found guilty of murder at Hull Crown Court after jurors deliberated for less than three hours.
Today, jurors concluded that Hanson deliberately thrust the knife into his chest before continuing to caramelise onions with the same bloodied blade. Hanson, who was sobbing in the dock, had previously gone on trial earlier this year but a different jury failed to reach a verdict. Judge John Thackray KC told Hanson she will be sentenced on October 3 and remanded her in custody.
Police forensics at the home in West Cowick (Richard Addison/MEN Media)The defendant continued to sob as the judge said to her: "There's only one sentence, which is life imprisonment. I have to calculate the minimum term which I will do having heard submissions from prosecution and defence counsel."
The court heard the former hairdresser called an ambulance and told 999 call operators she had accidentally stabbed her husband of 34 years "out of anger" during an argument while she was cooking. She said: "I need someone quick. We had an argument and I accidentally stabbed him, so if you wanna come, you can.
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"We had an argument and I had…I was cutting, cooking tea and he told me to ‘F**k Off’ and I’m a b***h so I just like, I don’t know what I did. But please come now!" Hanson denied murder and said during both her trials that she had simply pushed Mr Hanson away while holding a knife because he was shouting in her face, telling her to "throw his f****** tea in the bin".
She claimed she turned towards him and pushed him away with both hands while holding a knife in her right hand. Hanson told Hull Crown Court she had no idea the knife had gone into Mr Hanson until she heard the dog barking and followed a trail of blood to find her husband, 54, collapsed on the floor.
Teresa Hanson having a family lunch on Christmas Day
Paul pictured days before he was stabbed (Hull Daily Mail/MEN Media)But Alistair MacDonald KC told the jury that it was "theoretically possible for someone to fall or run onto a knife blade and thereby cause a serious injury but such injuries are extremely rare." Mr MacDonald said it was also difficult to understand how this happened in the way Hanson described when she is 155cm tall and the knife entered her husband's body 129cm above the ground.
The prosecutor said the pathologist who examined the body concluded that it was "highly unlikely that Mr Hanson simply walked on to a weakly grasped knife blade so as to cause a fatal stab wound of the type found in this case".
Mr MacDonald said Hanson told the police that her husband could be bad-tempered when he had had a drink but she was clear that she did not stab her husband because he had been abusive to her. "Her case was quite clearly put on the basis that this was a terrible accident," he said.