‘The perfect housew ife’ ... accused of trying to murder her husband
A WOMAN who ‘strove to be the perfect housewife’ has gone on trial accused of attempting to murder her husband.
Iain Fullerton suffered multiple cuts and wounds to his body and head in the alleged attack by his wife Grace.
Among his injuries was an exposed tendon in his hand and a partially collapsed lung. He required 33 stitches and has been left permanently disfigured.
Police later found a kitchen knife with his blood on it in the couple’s home in an upmarket Aberdeen suburb, while a bread knife was also recovered from the back garden.
Yesterday Fullerton, also known as Wilson, went on trial at the High Court in the city facing charges of attempted murder and abduction.
Giving evidence, family friend Ann Hepburn, 61, said she had known Fullerton, of Aberdeen, since she was 16. The retired nurse said her 61-year-old friend’s behaviour had changed after her marriage to Mr Fullerton in 1988, and even more since they moved to Westhill five years ago.
Mrs Hepburn said: ‘I feel she became a different person. She strove to be a perfect hostess and a perfect housewife. She was very focused on homemaking.
‘The last five years I saw more of her and I felt that behaviour just intensified and she was focused on housework.’
Prosecutor Owen Mullan asked how Fullerton’s temperament seemed to her.
Mrs Hepburn replied: ‘Grace has a short fuse. She could fly into a temper quite quickly over somewas thing of little importance.’ Mr Mullan asked how that would manifest itself.
The witness replied: ‘Usually in shouting and screaming.’
On the night of the alleged attack, Mrs Hepburn received a phone call from Fullerton. She said it sounded as if her friend ‘had been drinking’.
Mrs Hepburn said: ‘She quickly flew off the handle about something I said. I told her I was going to hang up on her and I did.
‘I joked with my husband that Iain would get it in the neck.’
When asked why she had made the remark, she said: ‘I meant that, as she hadn’t vented all her anger with me, Iain would be the next in line.’
During cross examination by defence advocate Lili Prais, Mrs Hepburn said at times when she met the Fullertons she noticed ‘marks’ on them both, including ‘bruises, black eyes and finger marks’ on her and scratches on her husband.
Mr Fullerton also gave evidence and claimed he was so drunk he could not remember the alleged incident on June 14, 2016. He blamed his heavy drinking on his wife having ‘mood swings’.
The business development consultant said his wife was ‘loving’ but rows had been caused by his drunken behaviour during the later years of their marriage.
The 64-year-old said he had no recollection of the incident and
‘Fly into a temper quite quickly’ ‘Behaviour was driving her nuts’
unable to remember a 999 call that was played to the court and a police statement taken in hospital.
The jury heard the emergency call made by Mr Fullerton, during which he said to the controller: ‘My wife has attacked me and I’ve been knifed and cut and I’m dying… I really think I’m dying.’
He said his statement was given while he was ‘drugged up’ in hospital and on returning to the family home he realised his account of events didn’t match up to the reality.
He added: ‘My behaviour was driving her nuts.’
Fullerton is also accused of assaulting her husband on various occasion between January 1992 and June 2016.
Prosecutors claim she kicked, punched and brandished knives towards him.
Over the same period she is also accused of swearing, shouting, screaming at and uttering threats to Mr Fullerton.
The Crown claims that on June 14 last year, the accused locked him inside their home against his will, threatened to kill him, struck him with a knife to his severe injury and attempted to murder him.
Fullerton has lodged a special defence of self-defence and claims she was mentally unfit at the time of the alleged incidents.
The trial, before Lord Ericht, continues.