17 years’ jail for knifing husband in the back
A HORSE trainer who stabbed her husband in the back before calling a friend to look after her dogs has been jailed for life for murder.
Christine Rawle, 70, was told she must serve at least 17 years for knifing Ian, 72, to death after he ordered her to tie some gates back.
The pair were living on separate parts of their land near Braunton, Devon, at the time of his death in August 2022 and would continually bicker.
They were compared in court to Roald Dahl characters The Twits, squabbling over selling some of their land and her “playing with the horses” and not making dinner for him.
The court heard claims from a neighbour that Rawle would put Viagra in her husband’s tea and chilli powder in his underpants, and would wipe her backside with his ties.
Rawle’s assertion that she acted in self-defence was rejected by a jury at Exeter Crown Court who found her guilty of murder.
Rawle thrust the knife 4in deep between her husband’s shoulders, puncturing the ribs and causing a lung to collapse. After being stabbed, Mr Rawle followed his wife of 29 years for 100 yards and pleaded: “Take this ****** g knife out of my back.”
But he bled into his chest cavity, which caused cardiac arrest.
The trial heard Rawle spoke to her daughter on the phone after the stabbing and told her: “I’m going to be in trouble for this. I’ve stabbed him,” and: “Oh my God, what have I done?”
The daughter, who lives in Milton Keynes, Bucks, hung up and called police and the ambulance service.
Meanwhile Rawle, instead of seeking help for her husband, made a 28-second call to a friend asking her to “sort her dogs out”.
Police footage showed her in tears as she was arrested, telling police her husband was “such a cruel bastard”.
Rawle told officers at the scene: “I took his life because he was horrible to me. He terrorised. It was continuous. I wanted out.” She added: “He wasn’t sexually capable, he had a prostate issue, he used to blame me and tell me I’m not attractive. He didn’t want children, he made me get sterilised.”
Their granddaughter, Georgina Bufton, told the court Mr Rawle was “very dismissive” and “would attack her femininity and try to disempower her. Any woman would react to that.”