Husband lef t note ‘in case I die at the hands of my wife...’
Message was on computer, murder bid trial told
A MAN left a note in his computer in case he was found dead at the hands of his ‘loving’ wife, a court heard yesterday.
Grace Fullerton is accused of attempting to murder her husband at their home in an upmarket suburb.
Two days after being taken to hospital with stab wounds, Iain Fullerton, 64, told police he had saved the message on a laptop in their Aberdeen home.
Yesterday, in a police statement read to the High Court in Aberdeen, he told officers the note said: ‘If I’m found dead and Grace is found responsible then I was not always a perfect husband.’
According to the statement – of which Mr Fullerton now denies any detailed knowledge due to ‘shock and medication’ – he wrote the note ‘a number of years ago’. The court heard it was stored under the filename ‘If’ – but he denied it contained the sentence read out.
Questioned by advocate depute Owen Mullan, Mr Fullerton said: ‘I did not say that and I did not write that.’
He claims his heavy drinking fuelled a breakdown in his relationship with his wife, blaming himself for what happened on June 14 last year.
Mr Fullerton said his police statement was ‘completely wrong’ due to his mental state following the ordeal.
He told the jury he realised this when he returned to the house and found the rooms in which he thought the ‘attack’ had taken place were untouched. He said: ‘There is no blood in the living room or dining room. I don’t recall the incident.’
He said the note, found to be corrupted and unreadable by police, was written in 2009.
Mr Fullerton, a semi-retired business consultant, claimed he told police about his incorrect recall of events during later interviews. But the court heard no such record had been recorded in police statements signed by him.
He also told the court he started taking video and audio clips of his 61-year-old wife around the house when he thought she was having ‘mood swings’ prior to the incident.
He said: ‘That was my intention – to persuade Grace there was something wrong and she should seek help, the irony being I was the cause of the problem.’
Video and audio clips were played to the jury in which Fullerton could be heard calling her husband ‘a selfish pig’.
In another, she could be heard saying: ‘You better be nice to me or I’m going to cut your throat… you’re destroying my life… so either you stop this or I’ll kill you, then I’ll kill myself. You don’t deserve to live.’
Mr Fullerton also claimed his wife had tried to take her own life on several occasions.
But when cross-examined by defence advocate Lili Prais, he admitted he had been ‘physical’ with his wife in the past.
Miss Prais put it to Mr Fullerton that he had been locked in the house to stop him drinkdriving that night and in his anger at finding the door locked and the keys missing he confronted his wife in the kitchen – leading to the incident.
‘Yes, it is possible,’ replied Mr Fullerton.
Fullerton is also accused of assault and threatening and abusive behaviour towards her husband dating back to 1992.
She has lodged special defences of self-defence and being of unsound mind at the time of the incidents.
The case continues.
‘I did not say that and I did not write that’