A grandmother accused of stabbing her husband in the chest while making a post-Christmas dinner told jurors she accidentally attacked him while pushing him away.
Hairdresser Teresa Hanson, 54, was making a Mediterranean tart in her kitchen when she fatally wounded Paul Hanson, 54, in West Cowick, East Yorkshire, last December.
Hanson, who denies murder, claimed her husband of 34 years had been shouting at her: ‘I didn’t f***king want tea. Chuck it in the f***ing bin’.
Giving evidence at Hull Crown Court, Hanson denied deliberately stabbing her partner, telling jurors that she went to push Mr Hanson away while forgetting she was holding a knife.
She told how she continued chopping onions and only realised her husband had been fatally stabbed when she heard their dog bark.
Prosecutors, however, allege that Hanson, who ran a wax melts business, deliberately thrust the knife into her husband’s chest before continuing to caramelise onions with the same bloodied blade.
Teresa Hanson (pictured leaving Hull Crown Court on June 13, 2023), who denies murder, says her husband had been shouting at her: ‘I didn’t f***king want tea. Chuck it in the f***ing bin’.
Teresa Hanson (left) is accused of murdering her husband Paul Hanson (right) who died after suffering a stab wound
Paul Hanson (pictured) died after he was stabbed while his wife was making a post-Christmas meal
Hanson allegedly murdered her husband on the evening of December 28 last year after he shouted at her when challenged for becoming increasingly drunk.
In a 999 call made shortly after 7pm, Hanson, told an emergency operator that she had stabbed Mr Hanson ‘just out of anger’.
She said: ‘We had an argument. I was cutting, cooking tea and he told me to “f*** off” and “I’m a b***h” so I just, like, I don’t know what I did.’
Giving evidence, Hanson said her husband called her a ‘b***h’ and walked off when she suggested he had consumed too much Rioja.
Mother-of-two Hanson said: ‘I was cutting onions. Half of them were in the pan.
‘I was finishing cutting the rest of the onions and he walked back in.
‘There were two onions I chopped.
‘[Paul] walked into the kitchen just shouting ‘I told you I didn’t f***ing want tea’. Chuck it in the f***ing bin’.
‘He was just walking towards me shouting.
‘As he came in shouting, I just turned to push him.’
Hanson, who admitted being ‘angry’ and ‘upset’, added: ‘I didn’t know I had [stabbed him].’
‘I attempted to push him away from me when he was walking in because I didn’t want him to shout at me.
‘He was coming towards me and I just wanted him to go away.
‘I just turned and pushed him. I don’t even know how it happened.’
Mr Hanson, a construction manager, described in court as a ‘loving father’ who ‘adored his grandchildren’, was pronounced dead upon arrival at Hull Royal Infirmary hospital.
After her arrest, Hanson, a mobile hairdresser, claimed her husband had accidentally walked on to the outstretched knife.
In a later account, she said that she had attempted to push him away with her hands, not realising the blade had penetrated his cotton t-shirt and chest.
She said she was unaware that Mr Hanson collapsed in a pool of blood and carried on cooking.
Police and forensic officers at the house in the village of West Cowick, East Yorkshire, following the death of Paul Hanson on December 28, 2022
Forensics take evidence from the house in West Cowick following the death of Paul Hanson
Dismissing Hanson’s account as a ‘lie’, Alistair MacDonald, KC, prosecuting had earlier told jurors: ‘Injuries like that simply don’t happen’.
He added: ‘Probably of what he said to her she lost her temper with him and stabbed him in the chest in anger as a result’.
Giving evidence, Hanson denied wanting to injure her husband, claiming that she did not consciously realise she was holding the blade.
She said: ‘I was cooking onions but I wasn’t conscious of it being in my hand at that point, but it was.
‘I didn’t even know I had stabbed him until I had seen him. I didn’t know what had happened. It was an accident. I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock.’
In cross-examination, Mr MacDonald put to Hanson: ‘Are you saying that he walked onto the knife?’
Pictured: Teresa Hanson, who has denied the murder allegations made against her
She replied: ‘I can’t say what happened in that instant.
‘He was walking towards me and I just turned and pushed. In that split-second, I can’t tell you. I wish I could.’
Mr MacDonald told the court: ‘You did swing that knife into his chest, didn’t you?’. Hanson replied: ‘No.’
Jurors were told that a pathologist determined it to be ‘highly unlikely’ that Mr Hanson accidentally walked on to a knife.
Mr Hanson was pronounced dead at 8.25pm on December 28. The court was told he had no defensive injuries.
Paul Hanson, 54, who was fatally stabbed at a property on Little London Lane, West Cowick
In a prepared statement after her arrest, Hanson claimed she had turned towards him with the knife ‘but not in a threatening way’.
Reading her statement, Mr MacDonald said: ‘My husband over the years has been verbally and mentally been abusive to me. This has been worse since he suffered a brain injury approximately 10 years ago. He is worse when he drinks.
‘Last night I was in the kitchen preparing a meal. He had been drinking wine and he came into the kitchen in a bad mood.
‘This normally happens when I mention about his drinking. I had a kitchen knife in my hand, preparing tea. He came alongside me and was shouting. I turned towards him with the knife still in my hand but not in a threatening way.
‘As I turned with the knife in my hand, he walked towards me and then I turned around. I had no idea that when he walked towards me, that he came straight at me and the knife went into him.
‘The first I knew something was wrong was when I heard the dog barking.
‘I then turned around and saw a blood trail on the floor.’
Jurors were earlier shown pictures of the 2cm-wide blade, pictured near to a black pan where onions were being cooked, with a roll of filo pastry and glass of red wine nearby.
Hanson told the court that her husband had consumed three or four glasses of red wine and the couple had been watching films and dancing earlier in the day.
Mr Hanson was the victim of a mass car crash on the M42 motorway near Birmingham in 1997 and was left in intensive care.
He also suffered a brain injury around a decade ago after being punched on a night out and hitting his head on the concrete.
Hanson said her husband turned to drink ‘as a way of coping’ and ‘if i mentioned [his] drinking he would click, but that was very rare’.
The trial continues.
