Horse-whisperer likened to The Twits character guilty of murdering husband by stabbing him in the back
22 March 2024, 13:01 | Updated: 22 March 2024, 13:33
A "horse whisperer" has been convicted of murdering her husband at their Devon home after he called her fat and lazy.
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Christine Rawle, 69, killed Ian Rawle, 72, by stabbing him in the back between his shoulder blades with a long knife as he pushed a wheelbarrow of horse manure to a dung heap on August 21, 2022.
The couple had been compared to Roald Dahl's The Twits when she put Viagra in his tea, chilli in his pants and wiped her bottom with his ties.
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Exeter Crown Court heard after being stabbed Mr Rawle followed his wife of 29 years for a hundred yards telling her to remove the knife, before collapsing and dying from the wound.
Prosecutors claimed the case was "as clear a case of murder as you are likely to find", and said Rawle attacked her husband in a "fit of temper" during an argument about land at their £800,000 home.
During her trial Rawle, who denied murder, did not give evidence but her legal team insisted she was acting in self-defence following years of physical and psychological abuse from her husband.
Rawle's youngest son Thomas admitted they were “both physical” engaging in “unpleasant tit for tat” and that they know how to “press each other's buttons”.
Judge James Adkin will sentence Rawle, who remains in custody, at Exeter Crown Court at 2pm on Friday.
