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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Lorraine King

Woman who murdered partner by stabbing him to death in drunken row jailed for life

A woman who was found guilty of stabbing her partner to death with a steak knife after a retrial has been jailed for life.

Emma-Jayne Magson was found guilty earlier this month at Birmingham Crown Court of murdering 26-year-old James Knight at her home in Newfoundpool, Leicester.

The 28-year-old killed Mr Knight with a single stab wound to the heart in March 2016 after a drunken row between the pair.

She claimed she stabbed him during a row when he was strangling her but jurors rejected the account.

On Monday she was handed down a life sentence with a minimum tariff of 17 years.

Chilling footage from a police body-cam shows Magson crying crocodile tears for her boyfriend moments after she stabbed him to death.

Emma-Jayne Magson was found guilty earlier this month (PA)

She waited 45 minutes before calling 999 after she had attacked him with a 11.5cm long blade and failed to mention to the call handler that she stabbed him and claimed he was just "too smashed".

She claimed Mr Knight had collapsed and when a call operator warned her the ambulance might be delayed, she calmly replied: "No, that's fine, don't worry about it."

She then appears to become more agitated as she screams: "I don't care just get my boyfriend out" before adding: "I don't care as long as he is alive".

Magson can then be heard sobbing as she bangs on the front door and says "I want my boyfriend" and "James, come on."

James Knight died from a single stab wound to the heart in March 2016 (PA)
Magson has been found guilty of murder for a second time (PA)

BirminghamLive previously reported Magson was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment at Leicester Crown Court in November 2016.

But Magson was granted a retrial by the Court of Appeal last year.

Her lawyers told three senior judges that fresh psychiatric evidence suggested that Magson may have been suffering from diminished responsibility at the time of the killing.

Clare Wade QC said Magson suffered from emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD), which she said "lay in the appellant having endured a childhood which was characterised by exposure to domestic violence", as well as "parental neglect" and being bullied at school.

Magson is caught on camera crying crocodile tears (Police handout)
James Knight with his two children Ruby and Evie (PA)

Ms Smith said the case of Sally Challen - whose murder conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal earlier this year - had brought issues around domestic violence "to the surface"

She said Magson had stabbed Mr Knight - with whom she had a "volatile" relationship - after he had been kicking at her front door "in circumstances where the deceased had been violent to her earlier in the evening".

She submitted that Magson's condition "substantially impaired her ability to exercise self-control and that the EUPD provides an explanation for her conduct and was a significant contributory factor causing the applicant to stab the deceased".

That evidence, Ms Wade argued, meant it is "more likely than not that, at the time of the offence, the appellant was suffering from diminished responsibility".

She added that the experts also now agreed that "the defence of diminished responsibility ... would have been available to her".

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