A WIFE has denied killing her husband claiming that he fell on a “paring knife” wh8ile she was cooking in the kitchen.
Daryl Berman, 71, is alleged to have killed her husband David Berman inside their house on Butterstile Lane, Prestwich.
She plead not guilty to the murder of her husband of three-decades.
Prosecutors claim Mrs Berman deliberately plunged a knife into her husband’s chest “for a reason known only to her”.
But the court heard she insists the tragedy was an accident.
Jurors were told she told police her husband fell in the kitchen and landed on the “paring knife” she had been using to prepare lunch.
The couple had been married for 27 years, described as “loving” and “mutually supportive”.
There had never been any reports of domestic trouble, violence or police involvement.
Opening the case, Michael Brady KC said Mr Berman’s death was initially thought to be a freak accident.
Mrs Berman called 999 at 1.55pm on March 13, reporting her husband had been injured.
She carried out CPR on her husband following instructions from the call handler.
Mr Berman was pronounced dead in their home at 2.39pm, the jury was told.
When asked what happened, she allegedly said: “I don’t know. I was in the other room.
“He’s carried a tray in. And all I can see is the tray. I think there was a knife.
“I don’t know whether the little knife that was there has gone into him and stabbed him. I really don’t know what’s happened.”
The first paramedic saw Mr Berman lying on his back on the kitchen floor.
Mr Berman’s daughter, Debbie, arrived shortly after being called by Mrs Berman.
“She [Debbie] told the police it was like a scene from an abattoir,” Mr Brady said. “She was understandably emotional.”
A police officer who attended spoke briefly with Mrs Berman.
She allegedly asked him: “You don’t think I’ve murdered him, do you?”
The officer also spoke to Mr Berman’s son, who said his father was “clumsy” and “always falling”.
CID officers were called, but the death was still not treated as suspicious at first.
Five days later, on March 18, Dr Lumb carried out a full post-mortem.
That evening, Mrs Berman was arrested on suspicion of murder.
In her police interview, she said she and her husband had eaten lunch in the lounge.
She said Mr Berman took her tray into the kitchen.
She allegedly told officers: “And he obviously walked into the kitchen, and I heard what sounded like a stumble or a fall. And straight away I said ‘oh my God, David, what’s wrong?’. He said ‘it’s okay I’ve slipped’.”
She continued: “And I sort of almost immediately heard another sort of bang, and a sort of groan. So I got up. I screamed and I ran into the kitchen.”
She added: “And I found him face down. He was making the most peculiar sound, I sort of looked down, moved his head a bit.
“And I thought ‘what on earth is all this gravy, we don’t have gravy’. And it was the amount of blood, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
She said she was in shock and couldn’t understand where the blood was coming from.
Mr Brady said a doctor at hospital grew uneasy about the nature of the wound and called in a pathologist.
That expert, Dr Philip Lumb, said the injury had the “typical features of a homicide”.
He concluded that while not impossible, it was “very unlikely to have caused the fatal wound” in a simple fall.
Mr Berman was also found with a cut to his finger, which prosecutors say could be a defensive wound.
Jurors heard the Bermans’ long marriage had been considered warm and supportive.
Mrs Berman herself was described as a “very supportive and loving wife”.
However, prosecutors said members of Mr Berman’s family were shocked by her demeanour after the death.
Mr Brady told jurors family members said she seemed “matter of fact and emotionless”.
They claimed she acted “as though nothing had happened”, and appeared unbothered about going back into the kitchen.
Cops initially accepted her account that it was an accident.
But after Dr Lumb’s findings, the coroner instructed a second pathologist, who agreed with the homicide assessment.
The court heard Mr Berman had recently been diagnosed with dementia and sometimes used a walking stick.
Despite this, jurors were told he had been in “the best health his family had seen for some time” just before he died.
Earlier that day, he had visited a play centre with his daughter and great-granddaughter.
Mr Brady told jurors the case hinges on a simple but crucial question.
He said: “May David Berman’s death be the result of a tragic accident, the injury sustained in a fall?
“Or is his death the consequence, for a reason known only to her, of the defendant attacking and stabbing her husband to the chest having also caused a stab wound to his finger while he defended himself from that attack?”
Mrs Berman denies murder and the trial continues.
