Wife jailed for killing husband during row
A HARROGATE woman who stabbed her abusive husband in the chest with a kitchen knife during a drunken row at their home has been jailed for more than three years.
Kimberley Louise Flintoft, 32, stabbed Lee Flintoft, 39, in the kitchen of their house at Kirkham Road, Bilton, in the early hours of July 20 last year with the knife she was using to make a sandwich.
She pleaded guilty to manslaughter by way of provocation after admitting she "lost both her temper and self-control" following a stormy 16-year relationship. At Leeds Crown Court, on Wednesday, she was sentenced to 40 months in jail. She was told she must serve at least half of that sentence before being eligible to be released on licence.
The court heard the couple would become aggressive after they had been drinking. During their relationship, Flintoft suffered violence and demands for sex from her husband and she admitted being “verbally nasty and aggressive” to him.
In an email between the couple read out in court – written when they temporarily split – she wrote: “I’m fed up with you telling me what I can and can’t do. I don’t care what you say for the past 14 years I have always done as you choose. I do love you Lee but I just can’t cope with living my life like that anymore.”
Prosecuting, Andrew Robertson QC said: “The general view of those that knew the couple was that they loved each other but that they fought frequently.”
The court heard how Flintoft had been at her brother’s flat showing holiday snaps, where she drank a bottle of wine and a glass of champagne.
Mr Flintoft, who had been out drinking at the Bilton Working Men’s Club, came to collect his wife and an “atmosphere developed”. Both were more than twice the legal drink-drive limit.
Mr Flintoft got into a taxi, where he shouted at his wife to “get a (expletive) move on” as he was hungry.
In a statement the driver said he noticed Mr Flintoft’s “attitude had changed” when his wife got in the car. Mr Flintoft said she was in a bad mood and it “looked like he wouldn’t be getting anything to eat”.
Defending, Andrew Campbell QC said: “Back at the house Mr Flintoft repeated he was hungry and demanded food. She got bread rolls out to make a sandwich and she got the knife out to do so.”
He said Mr Flintoft had then stormed off upstairs and when he returned he told her he had “so much anger built up inside him and that it was all for you”, before attacking her.
He said: “He went to strike her in the face.
“As she fell backwards and he bent over her she acknowledges she lost her self-control and used the knife which she had in her hand to stab him.”
The court heard that Flintoft immediately called the emergency services and admitted she had stabbed her husband in self-defence.
A medical examination showed she had injuries which were consistent with her story.
Mr Campbell described it as a tragic case: “She has to live with the knowledge, not only that she has lost the only relationship she has had in her adult life and the husband that she loved, but also has to bear with that pain the horror that she knows she was responsible for his death.”
Sentencing Flintoft, Recorder of Leeds Judge Peter Collier QC, said the degree of provocation was “substantial”, happening over a period of years, rather than months.
"You lost your self-control when he attacked you and you lost it because of his conduct towards you over preceding years,” he said.
“You were making sandwiches for him and it was while you were doing that he came in and you say he assaulted you,” he added. “It was a long way from being the first time.”
The judge continued: “At that moment, you snapped and all that had happened over the years welled up and erupted in a moment when you stabbed him with one downward thrust.”
Judge Collier spoke of the domestic violence between the couple, who married in 2006, and said the defendant was locked in a destructive relationship.
“The undoing of you both was the love you had for each other which kept bringing you back together," he said.
A statement from Lee Flintoft’s family said: “This is a sad loss of a loving son, brother, father, uncle and friend, who was taken away from us all at such a young age and is missed dearly.
“More than 450 people attended Lee's funeral to pay their respects, this just shows what a liked, popular man he was.
“Lee and Kimberley lived a life of domestic abuse which we have all said was a love-hate relationship, but Lee being the man would never report abuse against him to the police and now it’s too late.
“This is a terrible waste of life that has left a massive void in our family, never to be replaced.
“We, the family, have discussed before today whatever the sentence, this would never be enough as Lee did not deserve to die, certainly not in such a traumatic way.
Continued on Page 3.
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Sunday 05 February 2012
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