Woman detained over knife stabbing

A WOMAN stabbed her partner twice in the neck with a kitchen knife while suffering from a mental illness, a court was told.

Susan Gourlay was in a relationship for more than a quarter of a century with Phillip Kent but following a deterioration in her health she locked him out of the home they shared near Scarborough. He still visited but became increasingly concerned about her.

On August 15 last year, he arranged to meet a police firearms officer at the cottage over a certificate for a shotgun he then possessed.

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David Brook, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court yesterday that the officer Alan Woodhead described Gourlay as being irrational when he saw her.

After he left, Mr Kent went upstairs to collect some clothes and went to leave but suddenly felt a searing pain in his neck.

He turned to see Gourlay holding a kitchen knife with a six-inch blade which she used to stab him again before he grabbed it and threw it into another room.

He barricaded himself in the room with blood spurting from his neck and called 999.

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Police were quickly on the scene and found Gourlay sitting in a chair. She had blood on her and told them: “Lock me up.”

Consultant psychiatrist Paul Stankard told the court she was suffering from a personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Ahmed Nadeem, for Gourlay, said: “She profoundly regrets the events of August last year.”

Gourlay, 57, of South Street, Scalby, admitted unlawfully wounding Mr Hunt and was ordered to be detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act without time limit until it was decided she no longer posed a risk.

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Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said: “This is clearly a very sad case. For 27 years or so the defendant and Phillip Kent had been in a relationship, it appears to have been a very happy relationship, with absolutely no history of violence at all.” He said it was “pure good fortune he was not killed.”

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