Young mum stabbed ex after split (From Swindon Advertiser)

Young mum stabbed ex after split

6:00pm Wednesday 3rd October 2012 in News

THE trial of a young mum accused of attacking her former partner with a knife collapsed when she pleaded guilty to assault after hearing him give evidence.

Toni Trotman, who was five months pregnant at the time, was accused of swinging the bread knife ‘like when you serve at tennis’.

The 21-year-old believed Liam Ferris, the father of her unborn child, was sleeping with her best friend.

She was standing trial accused of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and an alternative of unlawful wounding.

But after lunch on the first day at Swindon Crown Court she changed her plea to guilty on the lesser charge.

Earlier, the jury of seven women and five men had heard 22-year-old Mr Ferris, of Eastcott Road, tell them his version of the attack.

He said he had been seeing Trotman for about seven months when he dumped her by text on February 9. They had been arguing a lot and he wanted out, he said, but insisted he was not in a relationship with the friend, though they did later get together for a while.

The day after he ended it he said he was with the other woman at her house, shortly after 11pm, when he got a message on his mobile.

He said it was from Trotman telling him to collect his things or she would throw them into the street.

Mr Ferris said he got there soon after, and she was throwing his clothes down the stairs at him when a knife with a 10in blade hit him on the shoulder ‘point first’.

He said he shouted at her ‘If you are going to stab me, do it’ and she continued to lob his possessions down to him.

Moments later he said he had gone few steps to pick up some items, when he realised she had the bread knife in her hand.

She then raised her arm and brought it down on his head, ‘like when you serve in tennis’, and he ducked causing it to strike him on the top of the scalp.

“If I didn’t duck it would have got my throat, or my cheekbone,” he told the court.

When he looked up he said Trotman had turned round, so he marched her to the top of the stairs in an arm lock before fleeing, bleeding heavily.

He told the jury that he hadn’t contacted the police but it was done by paramedics as a result of the injury being caused by a knife.

At hospital he had 10 staples inserted into the wound in his head.

Trotman, of Purlyn Acre, Marlborough, has been released on bail to Friday October 26 when she is due to face sentence.