A woman on trial for murder has said she did stab her partner but insisted she “doesn’t know why” and doesn’t remember picking up the knife, a court has heard.
Joanne Moran, 42, of Bridge Road, Litherland is currently standing trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of murdering Jonathan Gibbons, who died after being stabbed in the chest. She has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder and one count of manslaughter, in relation to an incident on October 30 last year at a property on Bridge Road, Litherland.
A court today, Wednesday, heard that Moran and her partner, Mr Gibbons, had been playing cards and drinking vodka and whiskey in their living room for over 12 hours when an argument ensued at around 4am. Moran also confirmed that there was one other person at that address during the incident, but did not witness it directly.
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Moran was called to give evidence in the trial on Wednesday, and confirmed that an argument also broke out between the witness and Mr Gibbons, during which time they shouted at each other and Mr Gibbons allegedly told the witness he would “stab him and get someone to shoot him”.
Mr O’Byrne previously told the court that the witness “did not seem to be unduly concerned by that” and went to another room in the house. During her police interview immediately after the stabbing, Moran claimed that the witness was in the vicinity when she stabbed Mr Gibbons, and that she had been trying to break the two men up from a fight.
After hearing testimony from that witness that he was in fact in a different room at the time of the stabbing, she accepted this “must have been” the case, but she thought he had been. During cross examination on Wednesday, Mr O’Byrne asked Moran if she told officers this because she thought it may help her case.
She immediately answered no. Moran was asked if she remembered any specific threats made to the witness by Mr Gibbons, and she said no.
Mr O’Byrne then asked: “You stabbed your partner, Mr Gibbons?” And she responded yes. He then asked: “And you killed him?” She answered yes again.
The prosecutor continued: “And that was a deliberate act on your part in the sense that you moved your hand and you stabbed him?” Moran said: “Yes”.
However the defendant then said that though it was a deliberate physical act, it was to move “into his space not into his body”. She continued: “I moved the knife like that, I didn’t go to stab John.”
Moran confirmed that Mr Gibbons was not threatening her or causing her any harm at the time of the stabbing. Mr O’Byrne asked Moran, if the witness was in another room, and Mr Gibbons was offering no threat to her, why she used the knife.
She asserted that she didn’t know why, but accepted she “must have” decided to go and get the knife from another room “in that moment”. The 43-year-old said: “I don’t remember picking a knife up, so I can’t tell you there was a thought process.”
Moran repeatedly denied having any memory of picking up the knife, and said she “couldn’t say anything about it” because she didn’t remember. She said: “I have picked it up to warn him off, I don’t remember picking it up.”
“Yes I was angry but I don’t know if that is why I picked the knife up.” Judge Andrew Menary KC, presiding over the trial, interjected and said: “Are you saying you didn’t purposefully go to the kitchen to get the knife?”
She responded: “I don’t remember no, I don't remember picking it up or having the thought to pick it up.” Regarding the incident on October 30, Gordon Cole KC, defending, asked her what she remembered happening.
Moran said: “I remember arguing with John and then I remember the feeling when I hit him with the knife in his chest. “I was just shocked when it connected with him and I remember him looking at me as if to say ‘what have you done’?”
When asked how she felt at that moment, she said “terrible.” Mr Cole asked her if she regrets what happened, to which she responded “I do.”
At this point the defendant began crying in the witness box and paused for a moment. A court also heard that Moran was examined after her arrest and was found to have a 2 centimetre lump with a graze mark on it on the back of her head.
When asked about it during a police interview, Moran said she must have fallen but she didn’t remember, but did recall seeing Mr Gibbons on top of her. She said: “When we were arguing I must have fell to the floor and he went like that when I was on the floor”.
A trial continues.
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