Jealous policeman tried to murder his wife, court hears

A librarian who had an affair with an old flame after contacting him through the internet site Friends Reunited fought back tears yesterday as she told a court how her husband, a police officer, had tried to kill her.

Detective Constable Hugh Needham, 42, had begged his wife to stay, even suggesting that they should get drunk, "fix a hosepipe to the car" and kill themselves rather than split up, Inner London Crown Court heard.

But when his wife – who now uses her maiden name, Laura Knox – insisted the marriage was over, he armed himself with a knife and plunged it into her stomach, the jury was told.

Visibly upset, Ms Knox, 37, told the court yesterday how the family gathered next door at her parents' house for her mother's birthday on 26 May last year.

The meal had been "tense", she said, adding: "We were trying to keep things going for my mum and the children." Her husband, "Hughey", wanted to leave as soon as the meal was over, but she decided to stay.

Soon afterwards DC Needham returned to tell her that their son had hurt himself and wanted her help – a claim she knew to be a ploy to lure her back home. Ms Knox said her husband stabbed her as she sat on their sofa with a mug of coffee in her hand, while their young children played upstairs.

"He turned towards me very quickly. I felt a pain in the stomach and I screamed and looked down and he had stabbed me," she said.

"It happened very quickly. I remember him turning quite slowly and them moving very quickly." She said her husband had waved the knife in front of her face "three or four times" and motioned as if to cut her throat. When he stopped waving the knife, she fled next door and an ambulance was called which took her to hospital.

Timothy Mousley, QC, prosecuting, had told the court that as Ms Knox was rushed to hospital, the policeman confessed to a colleague, saying: "I have gone and done it now. I lost it, I just lost it."

DC Needham was then said to have indicated some coffee and blood-spattered magazines and the sofa on which his wife had been sitting, and announced: "There is your scene."

DC Needham, of Bridge Down, Bridge, Kent, denies attempting to murder his wife, Laura, on 26 May last year, an alternative count of wounding with intent, and an allegation of intimidating a witness.

Opening what was expected to be a two-week trial, Mr Mousley said: "This is a case about a man who couldn't cope with the breakdown of his marriage.

"It was distress at his wife's loss of affection for him and her beginning an affair that led him to react with violence towards her. He was driven by jealousy and rejection, culminating in a moment of violence."

Ms Knox told the court that in spring last year she began using Friends Reunited to track down friends from her youth – including ex-school sweetheart Michael Soames. A series of e-mail exchanges soon led to meetings and then an affair followed. But a give-away petrol receipt, and a bank statement that showed she had paid for a meal for two, saw DC Needham's growing suspicions about his wife lead to a confrontation.

Ms Knox said she had made it clear that the relationship with her husband was over. On one occasion, she told the court, DC Needham suggested to her that they kill themselves.

"He said, 'why don't we get a four pack of beer and fix a hosepipe to the car and kill ourselves.' I said I didn't want to die," Ms Knox said.

The jury was told that after the alleged stabbing, DC Needham claimed he had been holding a knife used to peel oranges for his children, when he slipped, fell and "accidentally" stabbed his wife.

Ms Knox spent two days in intensive care and a month recovering after the knife pierced her stomach and penetrated her intestine. In cross-examination, Baroness Mallalieu, QC, for the defence, put it to Ms Knox that she was "making up" the evidence, and her knife wound had been the result of an accident.