A HORSE trainer knifed her husband in the back before he begged her to pull it out, a court heard yesterday.
Christine Rawle, 70, allegedly plunged the blade into “defenceless” Ian Rawle, 72, following a row at their isolated bungalow in north Devon.
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As Mr Rawle lay dying she “kicked” the knife “under the stable door” before sitting down and waiting for emergency services – who her daughter had called – to arrive.
Opening the case on Monday, prosecutor Sean Brunton KC said the couple had a “somewhat dysfunctional” relationship which he likened to “The Twits”.
He told Exeter Crown Court how on Sunday August 24, 2022, the couple had rowed about selling off a small piece of land because the defendant wanted the cash for an eye operation “come hell or high water”.
During the row, Rawle picked up a “large sharp knife” and “in a fit of temper she stabbed it into his back without any warning as he was walking away”.
Mr Brunton added: “[She] left the knife sticking into his back as she walks off with her husband following her and imploring her to pull the knife out of his back.”
The court heard Mr Rawle followed his wife around 100 yards across their land in Kittywell Wood, Knowle, before she pulled it out.
He “collapsed to the ground” and a short time later “died from the wound inflicted by that stab”, Mr Brunton said.
The mother of three, who described herself on social media as a “registered horse trainer” and is known as “the horse whisperer” will argue she was the victim of a “controlling and coercive” relationship.
But Mr Brunton told the court the alleged attack was “as clear a case of murder as you are likely to find” adding that Rawle “may be a complex, troubled and somewhat devious woman”.
In a fit of temper she stabbed it into his back without any warning as he was walking away
Prosecutor Sean Brunton KC
He added “if anyone was the bully, we say it was this woman here”, although her husband “was not a saint, far from it”.
Rawle has no psychiatric condition to excuse her for the alleged murder of “this unarmed, unprepared, 72-year-old man”, he told jurors.
Rawle – married to her husband for 29 years – had stabbed him once with a fork and once with a knife on two other occasions before she killed him, the court heard.
Jurors also heard how she had pursued her husband and “stole” him from his previous partner after buying a car from his garage.
They married in 1995, when he was 45 and she 41 with three children from a previous relationship.
In 2003 Mr Rawle transferred his property and a 20-acre smallholding he owned into joint ownership with his wife – it is now worth around £800,000.
The trial was adjourned until Tuesday morning.
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