A mum stabbed her boyfriend in the chest and told him to "stop being soft" as he begged her to call an ambulance.
The city's top judge told Lyndsey McCarthy that she could have killed her partner after knifing him following a visit to the pub. But she has walked free from court over the incident after what was described as a "momentary loss of control", having apparently been headbutted and strangled immediately before the stabbing.
Liverpool Crown Court heard today, Wednesday, that the 44-year-old and complainant Lee Ratcliffe had spent the afternoon of January 8 last year in the pub. But, in the evening, "things descended into argument" and the couple returned to her home on Prescot Road in St Helens.
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Frances Willmot, prosecuting, described how they continued to row over money and McCarthy "became aggressive", scratching him to the face and neck. Mr Ratcliffe was then said to have made threats concerning her children before headbutting her and grabbing her around the throat.
At that, the mother-of-three picked up a kitchen knife - which was "to hand" after it had earlier been used to open a pizza box - and used it to stab him in the chest. He fell to the floor injured and asked her to call him an ambulance, but McCarthy instead told him to "get up and stop being soft".
Mr Ratcliffe eventually dialled 999 himself, with paramedics arriving at the scene around 8.45pm. She told them "he headbutted me so I stabbed him", and later said to a police officer: "He headbutted me and tried to strangle me, so I did him."
The casualty was taken to hospital, where it was found the stab wound had perforated the wall of his abdomen. This injury had to be glued shut by medical staff.
McCarthy has no previous convictions. Kate Morley, defending, told the court: "There was a significant amount of provocation that led to Ms McCarthy's momentary loss of control.
"She bitterly regrets her actions. This offence was completely out of character.
"References provide an insight into the type of person Ms McCarthy is ordinarily. They describe a hard-working, devoted single mother to three children.
"The relationship with the complainant is well and truly over. The court can be confident that Ms McCarthy is unlikely to trouble these courts again."
McCarthy admitted unlawful wounding. Wearing a blue blouse and glasses in the dock with her black hair tied back in a ponytail, she was handed a 16-month imprisonment suspended for 18 months plus 100 hours of unpaid work and a rehabilitation activity requirement of up to 20 days.
Sentencing, the Honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC said: "You and he had been out drinking and had returning home before an argument developed, during the course of which he used violence against you. This was not the first occasion he had done that.
"In the heat of the moment and in an effort to defend yourself, you picked up a kitchen knife and delivered a single stab to his chest. Plainly, any action like that is inevitably going to be regarded as serious by this court.
"Using a knife in that way could have been fatal. These courts very frequently see serious, catastrophic injury or death as a result of a single stab wound to the chest.
"This wasn't a superficial injury, although conservative treatment was all Mr Ratcliffe needed. You were acting as a consequence of excessive self-defence in the face of significant provocation.
"Normally when someone uses a knife in any circumstances, there would be an immediate term of imprisonment. However, in your case, I bear in mind the particular circumstances in which this knife was used and the significant personal mitigation available to you.
"Your behaviour on this night was completely out of character for you - it shouldn't have happened, but there was a context to it. You are plainly someone who, in other respects, is a perfectly decent woman with caring responsibilities which you discharge perfectly properly."
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