Dinner lady found not guilty of stabbing husband to death after row over meal

Tracey White, 42, burst into tears and had to be helped from the dock at Sheffield Crown Court as her relatives in the public gallery hugged one another.

The defendant’s father said outside: “It’s an excellent verdict.”

Meanwhile, Mrs White’s junior barrister Tina Dempster said: “I don’t think there are any words she can say at the moment.”

Judge Simon Lawler discharged Mrs White and told members of the jury, who deliberated for five and a half hours: “This was not an easy case by any means.”

The court heard the couple argued after Alan White felt “overfaced” when his wife served him two pieces of meat on his plate at dinnertime.

They went out for a pre-Christmas karaoke session before returning home and arguing again, after Mrs White turned off the television while her husband was watching it.

He then began pulling her hair, punching and hitting her. She went downstairs but he followed her, grabbing her throat.

Mrs White said she didn’t know what she had taken from the kitchen drawer, while her husband pressed her against the breakfast bar at their home in Rossington, Doncaster, until he moved away and she saw he had a cut to his stomach.

She said she looked down, saw the knife in her hand and dropped it by the patio doors before dialling 999 as Mr White collapsed. He died later in hospital.

Mrs White told police that she had wanted her husband to stop hitting her and she didn’t mean to harm him or stab him.

Prosecutor Bryan Cox QC told the court the couple both had “short fuses.”

He said, after rowing over dinner, the couple spent the afternoon at Rossington Labour and Social Club on December 18 last year and were seen to be laughing and giggling as they went home.

The prosecution had claimed that, in the events afterwards, Mrs White intended to seriously injure her husband.