Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Woman who killed her partner with knife jailed
ASOMERSET woman convicted of fatally stabbing her partner has been jailed. Hayley Keating told a jury her partner had strangled her, she picked up a blade and flung it at Matthew Wormleighton – stabbing him unintentionally.
She described a turbulent relationship with Mr Wormleighton in which she would try to appease him with sex.
She told Bristol Crown Court trouble flared when she told him that, when they had temporarily split up, she slept with someone else.
The court heard that, after smashing their home near Yeovil, Mr Wormleighton threw her down and began to choke her.
She said she collected a knife from her cutlery draw, intending to cut herself so he would help her but ended up tossing the blade without meaning to hurt him.
Keating, 31, of Forts Orchard, Chilthorne Domer, denied murder in May last year, after Mr Wormleighton, 45, suffered a single stab wound to his chest. After the trial the jury cleared her of murder but found her guilty of manslaughter.
Trial Judge William Hart jailed her for six years at a sentencing hearing yesterday. He told her: “A toxic dynamic turned Matthew into a much less attractive person.
“He was passionately in love with you and you felt the same. But you were very bad for each other.”
Mr Wormleighton’s family members described him as a much-loved dad whose loss has destroyed them.
His daughter Chloe said: “It’s created a hole in all of our hearts forever.
“Our family can never receive justice
for the loss of him and the effect it will have on us for the rest of our lives.”
Claire Wade QC, defending, said the incident arose from a background of difficulties in the relationship.
She cited times when Mr Wormleighton had used violence and sexual violence against Keating, and on the night in question Keating had lost control and intended serious harm but not to kill.
Keating said when she realised he was hit with the knife she called an ambulance. She said she did her very best to follow instructions to help him, she added.
She told the court: “I thought he was going to kill me. I would never hurt him.”
Earlier Keating said when she and Mr Wormleighton lived together at her home it could be an uneasy partnership. She described how he would work from home and would question her about what she did when she went out and also about her spending.
Keating admitted buying drugs “mostly weed” - for them. She said she wanted to keep things good and intimacy was one way of doing it.
Keating told the court: “Sex would keep Matthew happy. If I was giving him what he wanted sexually he would be happy.”
The court heard days before the fatal wounding the couple walked to Montacute and had a drunken fallout. Keating explained how he must have “kicked off” and she ran away, getting a lift home with a stranger.
The jury heard a series of phone messages between the pair in which Mr Wormleighton was highly abusive to her, telling her he had had enough after she “ditched him” and got a lift, leaving him to walk in the rain.