Mum killed partner after dreaming he'd gone back to ex-wife

Yahoo

5 days ago

A woman has been jailed after she killed her longterm partner in a harrowing assault inside their home.
Gillian Shaw told police 'you should just put me away now' as she was arrested for attacking 63-year-old Steven Cox.
Horrifyingly, Shaw had tried to gouge her victim's eyes out in the assault on New Year's Eve last year.
Mr Cox, who was terminally ill, died in hospital the following day, Liverpool Echo reports.
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The attack came after Shaw had dreamt that her victim "was going to go back to his ex wife", having also developed the paranoid belief that he "loved cigarettes more than her".
Liverpool Crown Court heard on Monday, July 28, that the couple had been together for 37 years and had a "good relationship until recently", when Shaw had "started to assault" Mr Cox.
Shaw called Merseyside Police to their home on Rothwell Street in Everton shortly after 4pm on December 31 2024, the court heard.
Gordon Cole KC, prosecuting, described how Shaw reported at this time that she had "hit her partner and tried to gouge his eyes out".
She later told officers at the scene that she had "struck him to the head because she said she thought he had hidden her bank card".
Mr Cox had detailed to PCs who attended his home how Shaw had "hit him two or three times to the face, kicked him once to the chest and attempted to gouge his eyes out".
He meanwhile recalled that his partner had "called him a b****rd" and accused him of "wanting out of their relationship" as he had been attempting to "get it on with other family members, including her best friend".
Having been taken to the Royal Liverpool University Hospital by ambulance, Mr Cox was found to have sustained three fractured ribs, as well as "clear facial injuries", and was suffering from breathing difficulties.
While he told medics that his relationship with Shaw was "good", he was also said to have been "concerned for her mental health".
He went on to detail how they began arguing in the living room at around midday before she stood on his foot, struck him to the head and pulled him to the floor.
The attack was then said to have continued as he lay on the ground, where she "dug her nails into his face" and kicked him to the chest.
Mr Cox, who suffered from "very significant" medical conditions including COPD, thereafter became unresponsive in the early hours, being pronounced dead at 4.31am.
Shaw was arrested for murder at 9.57am on January 1 2025 following Mr Cox's death and told officers: "You should just put me away now."
A post-mortem investigation found injuries "indicative of blows to the face", bruising "consistent with a dragging type actions" and rib fractures "consistent with blunt force trauma".
The pathologist ultimately gave a cause of death of severe pulmonary emphysema and heart disease with blunt force chest injuries.
Shaw told detectives that she "had dreamt Mr Cox was going to go back to his ex wife" and "admitted slapping his face, stamping on his foot and gouging his eyes", adding that she had "phoned the police because she thought he might die".
Anne Whyte KC, defending, said: "It is quite clear from the facts and the history given by her own children that this woman struggled to cope with the terminal diagnosis of her partner.
"Their lives, notwithstanding the use of cannabis and the fractured relationship with their children, who disapproved of their lifestyle, speak of a stability and a good relationship.
"Ms Shaw had, in fact, intended to take her own life when Mr Cox died, and continued to feel suicidal until relatively recently.
"She was the primary carer for Mr Cox. It is quite clear from the evidence of her children that she had become socially isolated and she was neglecting herself.
"The physical acts of which she is accused are broadly accepted. She accepts standing on Mr Cox's toe. She accepts scratching at his eyes and striking him in some way to the head. Her memory about kicking has been inconsistent at times."
Ms Whyte submitted that the level of force used during the incident would have otherwise resulted in a conviction for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
"This defendant, in the state that she was in, in her own self neglect and with her cognitive abilities, would not in a month of Sundays have known that hitting her partner round the head as she did, and kicking him in some way, would carry a high risk of death," she said.
"At the time of his sad demise, he was mobile. She was tiny.
"The defendant summoned assistance for Mr Cox, and Mr Cox was very clear that he felt that she needed help.
"He was right. She did need help. That, perhaps, has already produced a person who is no longer suicidal, who has put a little weight on and perhaps has more structure to life than she had before, as well as an inability to use cannabis and, importantly, she is on medication that she was not on before.
"This woman had her own complex mental health disorders. She was actually sectioned in 2023 for three months, something which she does not actually remember now. These events took place when she was severely irritable, paranoid and emotionally dysregulated.
"Having been in crisis and been encouraged to seek help by her daughter two days beforehand, she was immediately referred by her GP for an assessment. She was due to undertake this assessment on the afternoon that these events occurred.
"That derangement of thought, that her partner was having an affair and that her daughter was taking her bank card, was so off the scale in terms of paranoia that it is pretty clear that was was ill. Her thinking was not rational, something that she struggles to understand now.
"She was seriously underweight. She was not sleeping. She was not maintaining her hygiene, all in the context of wanting Mr Cox to live just a little bit longer. The 37 years is the real testament to this relationship, which only started to decline when this relationship was bound to come to an end due to natural disease."
Shaw pleaded guilty to manslaughter during a previous hearing. A charge of murder was dropped by the prosecution.
She waved to family members in the public gallery as she was led to the cells after being jailed for five years.
Sentencing, Judge Denis Watson KC said: "You and Steven Cox had lived together in the same home for many years.
"You had two children together, and Mr Cox also had two children from a previous relationship. The relationship was generally a happy one, but, over the last six years or so, various stresses and strains became apparent.
"Your mental health had deteriorated. You seem to have become depressed, and, on several occasions, you were subject to Mental Health Act assessments, and you had also been admitted to the Broad Oak unit for about three months in late 2021.
"Steven Cox's physical health had deteriorated as well. In the autumn of 2024, he was told that his condition had deteriorated, such that his life expectancy was something in the order of 12 months. I have no doubt that was extremely distressing for both of you.
"It has been pointed out that you have no previous convictions, but I cannot ignore that there are in existence crime reports of assaults by you, covering events between September 2019 and December 2024. There had even been a callout a day or two beforehand. In all of those previous episodes, Steven Cox had never wished to make a formal complaint to the police.
"You were irritated with him at various points of that day. You accept that you believed he was either smirking at you or had hidden your bank card, and that he wanted to return to his ex-wife or that he loved cigarettes more than you. There is no reason to believe that any of these things were true.
"It seems that you attacked him, slapped him, punched him, kneed him or kicked him, which, at some point, caused him to fall to the ground. You admitted scratching his face or gouging his eyes with your fingers.
"You must have realised at some point that he was not at all well, because you called a friend and then called 999. On the arrival of the emergency services, you were to make significant admissions as to what had gone on.
"By 4 o'clock in the morning the following day, he was known to be unresponsive and he died shortly afterwards. Although he had serious and significant pre-existing medical conditions, blunt force trauma inflicted by you was, without doubt, a contributory factor to his death.
"There was a history of violence. It was apparently that this violence occurred over a relatively protracted period of time. I take into account that, until about 2019, you had led a blameless life. I am entirely satisfied that there is remorse. There was a lack of premeditation.
"You were the primary carer for Steven Cox and you had become socially isolated at the time, which led to elements of self neglect.
"Significantly, there is your mental health. You were suffering from a depressive episode with suicidal symptoms at the time of the offences.
"What is clear to me is, since you have been remanded in the custodial regime, the stability and support you have had has led to an improvement, not just in your mental health but also in your physical health."