Woman tells court she has no memory of stabbing boyfriend in heart

Rebecca Dormer said the first she remembered was Gareth Matthews sitting on the sofa bleeding and her trying to help him.

She told Leeds Crown Court she had been drinking and had mental health difficulties which affected her ability to remember things.

She vaguely remembered Mr Matthews and her brother Daniel returning from shops while she was tidying the flat where she lived with her partner in Springhill Court, Whitby.

Paul Greaney QC, defending her, asked if she remembered a time when she and Mr Matthews started to argue.

“No”, she replied.

He said according to her brother’s evidence Mr Matthews had thrown down a vase containing sand and a candle and after that she had started behaving abnormally as though she had lost control.

“We know from Daniel you slapped Gareth, do you remember that,” he asked.

“No,” she said.

She told the jury: “Everything is all muddled up, I don’t know what happened first. Everything happened so fast.

“I couldn’t believe what I had done. I was in shock at what I had done.”

She said by then Mr Matthews did not have his T-shirt on and she got the socks to press on the wound. “I was just in so much shock, I was panicking. I didn’t know what to do next, I felt ill.”

Dormer, 23, denies the murder of Mr Matthews, 32, in February. She has admitted manslaughter.

The hearing continues.