A WOMAN who stabbed a man in the neck with a broken wine glass and left him fearing he was going to die has been jailed for six and a half years.
Kathryn Mary Mallet smashed the glass in a drink-fuelled argument and used it in a terrifying attack which ‘but for the grace of God, could have resulted in death,’ the Royal Court heard.
The 58-year-old claimed she had acted in self-defence. But Crown Advocate Mike Preston, prosecuting, said the jury at her trial in May had not accepted her ‘ludicrous version of events’ and unanimously found her guilty of grave and criminal assault.
He told the Superior Number of the Royal Court, which convenes for Jersey’s most serious cases, that Mallet and the victim had been drinking in another other man’s flat in St Helier on the evening of 8 March last year when an argument broke out.
‘She then smashed a wine glass and picked it up at its base and attacked him with the jagged rim,’ the advocate said.
The victim escaped from the flat while ‘clutching a gaping wound in his neck’ and dialled 999, the court heard.
Doctors also found scratch marks to his shoulders caused when Mallet tried to prevent him escaping so that she could go on attacking him.
The advocate said: ‘At the time he thought he was going to die.’
A forensic medical examiner confirmed the neck wounds could have been fatal, the court heard.
Advocate Preston said: ‘It was an attack which, but for the grace of God, could have resulted in death.’
The physical injuries have healed but Advocate Preston said that the ‘psychological effects of this terrifying attack remain’.
He added: ‘He has been unable to work properly as a result.’
Mallet consistently denied the offence, claiming that the victim had threatened her and she had picked up the nearest object, which happened to be the broken wine glass.
The court heard that she went on denying the offence until last Thursday.
Mallet, who has previous convictions for assault, malicious damage and resisting arrest, although the most recent dated back to 2015, is assessed as being at ‘very high risk of reconviction’.
Advocate Nicholas Mière, defending, said that although Mallet did not plead guilty, she now accepts the prosecution’s case.
He said: ‘The fact that she now holds her hands up and accepts that the responsibility lies squarely with her is to her credit.’
The advocate added that Mallet had suffered trauma in childhood and in relationships afterwards and had had a drink problem, but pointed out: ‘She wants once and for all to cut alcohol out of her life.’
Delivering the court’s sentence, Deputy Bailiff Robert MacRae said: ‘This was an assault that could have been fatal, yet you were prepared to cast yourself as the victim until as late as Thursday of last week.’
The Jurats sitting were Jane Ronge, Robert Christensen, David Le Heuzé, Alison Opferman and Michael Berry.
