Marine’s jilted wife tipped boiling water on his lover after offering tea
Commando feared for mistress’s life after seeing steam rising from her head in estranged partner’s attack
WHEN Monika Fourie offered to make her estranged husband’s mistress a cup of tea, it might have been interpreted as a mature attempt to let bygones be bygones.
But it soon became clear that she had no interest in building any sort of rapprochement with Hannah Stokes.
Within minutes, Fourie had poured boiling hot water over Miss Stokes, leaving her suffering severe burns to her chest, neck and back.
Wouter Fourie, a Royal Marine commando who was twice blown up by IEDS in Afghanistan, described how he feared for his lover’s life after seeing steam rising from her head as his wife poured boiling water on her.
The attack occurred after Fourie walked into the marital home she had until recently shared with her husband, to find him watching a rugby game with Miss Stokes, in Oct 2015.
Acting in what Plymouth Crown Court heard described as an “eerily calm” manner, Fourie, 34, asked her husband to introduce them. She then said she was going to make a cup of tea and walked over to the kitchen area of the open-plan room, from where she asked Miss Stokes a series of questions – such as how old she was and whether she had any children. Jo Martin, prosecuting, said: “Mrs Fourie approached Miss Stokes with a cup of tea. Miss Stokes presumed it was a cup of tea. It was not. It was boiling water and Monika Fourie threw it over her neck and chest area.”
At this point Mr Fourie, 36, returned downstairs to see his wife walk over with the kettle and pour more scalding water over Miss Stokes, emptying it over her head and chest. The victim ran from the house, but was attacked again by Fourie, who pulled her hair and punched her as she tried to flee.
Miss Stokes, 27, was treated for second-degree partial thickness burns down to her navel and had to undergo surgery for a perforated eardrum.
South African-born Mr Fourie had begun his affair with Miss Stokes a few weeks earlier, in Sept 2015, before confessing the relationship to his wife and telling her the marriage was over.
Miss Martin reported that Mr Fourie said his wife took the news calmly before she left their house in Plymouth to go and stay with a friend. A few days later his wife returned as he was watching the match with Miss Stokes.
Mr Fourie, who previously served in the South African Navy, told the court: “As I went upstairs I heard Hannah screaming. She was shouting ‘help, help, please help.’ 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.”
‘I saw Monika grab a kettle and she had rage in her face like she wanted to hurt Hannah very badly’
He said his marriage had come under severe stress after he was twice blown up by improvised explosive devices in 2013. He said he believed that his wife, whom he met in Germany in 2004 and who came from a devout Catholic family in Poland, had suffered post-natal depression.
Miss Stokes fought back tears as she told the court: “I saw someone full of rage. She was hunting me down. I know I did not deserve what I got.”
Fourie, denies causing grievous bodily harm with intent, but pleaded guilty to the alternative charge of causing grievous bodily harm without intent.
Miss Martin said the issue was what had been going through Fourie’s mind at the time and whether she had the intent to cause serious injury. The barrister said prosecution and defence psychiatrists agreed that Fourie was suffering from “adjustment disorder” as she struggled to come to terms with the end of her marriage and this could have led to an acute stress reaction.
Judge Paul Darlow told the jury that Fourie was suffering from anxiety and depression and allowed her to sit in the well of the court with a friend rather than in the dock. The trial continues.