'Horse Whisperer' and husband 'slept in separate bedrooms after he had affair'
The best friend of a woman on trial for murdering her husband has said the couple slept in separate bedrooms after he had an affair, a court has heard.
The relationship between Christine Rawle, known locally as "The Horse Whisperer", and her husband Ian stopped "quite a lot of years ago" when he became involved with another person, Exeter Crown Court was told. The defendant's best friend Alison Gilbert told the court the couple had slept in separate rooms "for a number of years" following the affair.
She added Rawle was "a lot happier when she was with the horses and away from him", adding: "He played mind games with her and her emotions." The jury heard that after she stabbed him in the back with a long, sharp knife as he was pushing a wheelbarrow of horse manure, 70-year-old Rawle made a short phone call to Miss Gilbert.
The defendant is known locally as 'The Horse Whisperer' (Facebook)Miss Gilbert told the court: "She was very distressed and sobbing and said he is dead. I asked what happened and she just said 'he went on and on and on at me. She asked me to look after the animals for her because the police were on their way and she had to go." Miss Gilbert said Rawle could not afford a divorce but 72-year-old Ian Rawle would not agree to it anyway, so they continued to live at their isolated £800,000 home with land at Kittywell Woods in Knowle, North Devon.
She said: "She just wanted out and find a way. Her main concern was always her animals and she did not want to move her animals. I never saw Ian be civil to Christine. He would constantly put her down.
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"He swore at her and every other word was the f word. He would not speak to me. She waited on him hand and foot. He would call her stupid, lazy and useless - he made derogatory remarks."
The jury has heard she stabbed him in the back in "a fit of temper" after Ian reneged on selling some of their land to pay for improvements to their dilapidated property. The court heard they were like Roald Dahl's characters in The Twits where they were spiteful, idle and unkept who continuously played nasty practical jokes on each other to amuse themselves.
The court has been told that Rawle put Viagra in his tea, chilli powder in his underpants and once put a hosepipe through the sunroof of his vehicle and flooded it with water. The eldest son of Christine Rawle said his mother was "authoritarian".
Matthew Bufton said: "My dad was too easygoing. She kept the show on the road. Money was an issue for sure." He left home aged 15 after his mother broke his TV with a screwdriver being one of the catalysts for him to go and live with his grandparents because he felt like a "caged bird".
Ian Rawle was stabbed to death (Devon and Cornwall Police / SWNS)He said his mother's marriage to his father Stephen Bufton was never violent but came to a head with arguments and fights where things were broken and they divorced. He said his contact with his mother was "sporadic" and when he saw his mum with her second husband Ian Rawle, there was a "lot of bickering" between them.
The 50-year-old father of two said he did not talk to his mother for a lot of years because "of words said a long time ago" and he never regarded Ian Rawle as his stepfather. Matthew's daughter Georgina, 27, said Ian was a "very dismissive man", telling the court: "He was dismissive to her feelings, physical capabilities, dreams - anything my nan wanted to do."
She said Ian, who she called her grandfather, would create "a blockade" to whatever she wanted, adding: "He would attack and disempower her as a woman." She said she saw her "nan" slap Ian Rawle adding: "It was very well deserved." She said her nan also threw an object through his tractor window and said she "drank quite a lot" but created a "place of respite" in the stables where she moved into to keep away from her husband in their bungalow home.
She told the jury that Ian would "brush her off" and show no compassion when she was very poorly. She said Ian would put down his wife about her weight gain, dying her hair and whether she had washed things correctly. "There was a bit of a battle, an issue over money. My grandad had a view that my nan could not do anything right. He was a very cold man and mostly directed that at my nan. He was a bit of a sod. He was very critical of her. It hurt her.
"He deliberately wound her up. My nan loved him," and said Ian Rawle "mentally tortured" her to "wear her down, wear her down to get a spilled reaction". Rawle denies murder. The trial continues.
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