Dinner lady ‘stabbed husband to death’ after row about lunch

Dinner lady Tracey White, 42, stabbed husband Alan, 49, in the stomach after they had both returned merry from a pre-Christmas karaoke evening at their local club.

Opening a murder trial at Sheffield Crown Court, prosecutor Bryan Cox told a jury: “On the afternoon they had argued because of points made about a meal she had prepared.”

The row apparently continued when the couple returned home and after Mrs White had clumps of hair pulled out she plunged a kitchen knife into her husband’s abdomen in retribution.

She later told police: “We had lunch and he started arguing after I put two pieces of meat on his plate.”

The couple had both had about six pints of lager and were laughing and joking on the way home as former miner Mr White had unclipped his false leg and was messing about in the street.

But Mr Cox said the apparently happy marriage had its “ups and downs” and there had been episodes of violence involving both parties which had twice previously resulted in the police being called.

It was clear the pair, who have a son and a daughter, had “considerable affection” for each other and their children described the marriage as happy and loving despite the arguments and violence towards each other.

They also both had a “short fuse” particularly when they had been drinking but usually made up afterwards.

The couple, from Bond Street, Rossington, Doncaster, spent the afternoon at Rossington Labour and Social Club on Sunday, December 18 last year and appeared in good spirits.

Witnesses said they were laughing and giggling as they went home “arm in arm” and a friend offered to give Mr White a piggy-back as he struggled to sort out his false leg.

But the defendant later claimed to police that when they got home her husband went upstairs and she had a sandwich in the kitchen. When she went up to go to bed her husband put on his leg and attacked her on the landing, pulling her hair and punching her in the face and head.

The court was told that she had pushed him off and went back down to the kitchen.

As he pushed her against the breakfast bar she leaned backwards and took a kitchen knife out of the drawer.

Mr Cox said she told police: “He was hitting me and I was pinned up. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t push him off.

“I just fumbled in the drawers to get something to hit him on his arm or something to get him to stop. It all happened so fast.”

Mr Cox said: “She said she couldn’t remember what was being said at that point. He was in her face for a minute or so and couldn’t push him off.

“Mrs White apparently claims she cannot remember stabbing her husband with the knife and claims it was an accident but the prosecution say she knew what she was doing and her account was untrue.

“The truth is she inflicted the fatal wound deliberately and in anger.”

Her husband sustained a wound of 14 to 17cms in his stomach as well as cuts to his hand where he tried to fight off his wife.

Police and paramedics who were called to the scene found him alive in the kitchen but he died later in hospital from severe internal bleeding.

The jury was told that when she was arrested the defendant said to police: “I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to stab him.”

“She may have immediately regretted what she did but at the time she inflicted that injury she must at least have intended serious injury and is therefore guilty of murder,” said Mr Cox.

Mrs White denies murder. The trial continues.