Marine’s jilted wife poured boiling water over his lover, 24, as she sat on their sofa
A JILTED wife poured a kettle full of boiling water over her husband’s young mistress after she walked in on them in the marital home, a court heard.
Monika Fourie, 34, left 24-year- old Hannah Stokes with ‘terrible burns’ when she twice doused her with scalding water.
Jurors were told Miss Stokes had been having a four-week affair with Fourie’s husband Wouter, 36, a South African-born Royal Marine.
Mr Fourie said he had first met Miss Stokes four months earlier as his sevenyear marriage began to disintegrate. It had come under intense strain when he was blown up twice by IEDs while serving in Afghanistan in 2013.
When he told his wife that he had met someone else, she walked out of their home. But Plymouth Crown Court was told that she returned days later, on October 24, 2015, letting herself in with her keys only to find the couple relaxing together on the sofa watching a rugby match.
Mr Fourie said: ‘I was at home with Hannah and my daughter, who was upstairs watching a film.
‘My wife let herself in. I looked at Hannah and we were both shocked. I was not expecting my wife to walk in.
‘She asked where my daughter was and went straight to the kettle to switch it on.
‘She looked at Hannah and asked, “Who are you? What is your name and do you have any kids?” ’
Jo Martin, prosecuting, said Fourie was ‘eerily calm’ and told her husband to go upstairs, in what seemed like an attempt to clear the air between the two women.
She added :‘ Fourie approached Miss Stokes with a cup of tea. Miss Stokes pre- sumed it was a cup of tea. It was not. It was boiling water and Monika Fourie threw it over her neck and chest.
‘She started to scream with pain and instinctively moved to the corner of the room.’
Mr Fourie said when he heard Miss Stokes’ screams he rushed back downstairs.
He added: ‘I saw Monika grab a kettle and she had rage in her face like she wanted to hurt Hannah very badly. She poured boiling water on Hannah’s head. I saw the steam. Hannah was in agony.’
Miss Stokes ran out of the house but was again attacked by Fourie, who grabbed her by the hair and punched her, it is claimed.
She was left with second degree burns from her head down to her navel. She also required surgery for a perforated eardrum.
Giving evidence yesterday, Miss Stokes said: ‘ I saw someone full of rage. She was hunting me down.
‘I know we both did something wrong in this situation, and the reality is that I had an affair.
‘But I know I did not deserve what I got. I would have to be sick to exaggerate the hell I have been through. I have to live every day for the rest of my life with what she did. She had snapped, as I was in her house.’
Fourie denies causing grievous bodily harm with intent, but she has pleaded guilty to the alternative charge of causing grievous bodily harm without intent.
The court heard Fourie, of Plymouth, maintains she has no memory of the events.
Prosecution and defence psychiatrists have agreed that she was suffering from ‘adjustment disorder’ as she struggled to come to terms with the end of her marriage.
The trial continues.
‘She was full of rage... she had snapped’