'˜I didn't stab my husband', murder accused tells court

The shocking find was disclosed to David Edwards’ wife Sharon, who is accused of his murder, during her police interview, Manchester Crown Court heard yesterday.

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Mum-of-four Edwards, 42, took to the witness stand for first time in her trial to give evidence as the defence’s case gets underway.

She denies murder and insists her husband “walked onto” a knife she was holding after she had taken it from him at their home on Parkers Wood Close, Chorley, where the 51-year-old was found dead in his bed last August.

Moments before she took the oath, the black handled kitchen knife alleged to be the murder weapon was shown to the court. When asked directly in her police interview if she stabbed him she said: “No I did not stab David. Why would I stab my husband? I love him.”

She also denied causing any of the injuries found in the post mortem examination.

Edwards, who worked part time at an electrical shop in Chorley, sobbed at several points as she described their relationship. Jurors heard the couple first met on her 27th birthday in 2000 when David Edwards defended her former partner John Pritchard, in a trial where he was accused of assaulting her. He was cleared. Their paths met again when she was involved in a neighbour dispute the same year and she contacted him. But they got together in June 2014 after he sent her a friend request on Facebook.

Asked by David Fish QC to describe their relationship she replied: “It was very intense, very passionate, very loving.”

She clutched a tissue and cried as jurors were played a nine minute wedding video from Las Vegas in which she says: “You’re my true soulmate.” He tearfully tells her she’s “everything he ever wanted.”

Asked about David having a black eye on footage and pictures in Las Vegas, she said he accidentally hit himself in the eye with the hotel phone handset as they went to order room service. Edwards was asked about her alcohol use, and said began drinking more after meeting her husband.

She also told the court arguments were provoked by David when he was stressed, and said he would call her derogatory names and say “16” , referring to her teenage pregnancy with her first child.

Jurors heard he loved his job at Stanley H Cross and Co but that his attitude to work changed when it was taken over by Kevills. She told jurors: “He absolutely hated it, he couldn’t adjust to not being a partner, to having to get permission for everything. He didn’t get on with them. It was terrible.”

She said he had cried when he came home from work on occasions. Edwards said she had heard other witnesses describe his weight loss but said he had only lost nine pounds in 11 months, partly due to him cooking her meals as she followed a diet plan. She broke down as she was shown a photograph from her phone of David Edwards in a sling after he suffered a broken collar bone from drunkenly falling down the stairs - an incident she claimed he had found so funny he wanted to put it on Facebook.

She said he fell or injured himself weekly in drink.

Asked about injuries he suffered from a glass coffee table, Sharon Edwards says he fell into a coffee table and broke it, and denied throwing it at him.

He suffered small cuts from the shattered glass and larger ones to his head, arm and hand but went to work and later told a friend she had caused the injury. Later in the hearing she said: “I’d say me and David both had jealous personalities.”

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