Judge directs jury on murder trial evidence

Jurors trying a Wolverhampton College manager who stabbed his partner 60 times must consider whether he "lost self control" as they decide if he is guilty of her murder, a judge has said.

The panel will also need to consider if Stephen Dowds was "so intoxicated" that he was unable to make a decision to kill or cause serious injury to Mandy Finn, Judge John Wait said.

The judge's remarks came yesterday at the conclusion of evidence in the trial of Dowds, who knifed Miss Finn 60 times at the home they were sharing on Newhampton Road West, Whitmore Reans.

Dowds, who denies murder, has told the Wolverhampton Crown Court trial that his last memory of Miss Finn is when the couple were dancing happily after drinking vodka.

He has told the trial that he was shocked to wake up some time later and find the lifeless body of the mother-of-two, who was a psychology lecturer at the college, behind the sofa.

Dowds, aged 49, said he had no recollection of what had happened but that he now accepted he had killed the 40-year-old.

Judge Wait's comments came after jurors passed a note to him yesterday.

It read: "Is the defendant pleading not guilty on the basis of diminished responsibility. If so is he receiving treatment in prison or since the incident?"

The judge replied: "I will explain to you in detail the legal issues that there are in this case in the course of my summing up. There's no mystery about it – Mr Dowds acknowledges that he's guilty of unlawfully killing Mandy Finn.

"The issues that will be before you are whether he was so intoxicated as to be incapable of forming intent to kill or cause really serious injury, or, if he did form such intent whether that was as a result of loss of self control in a special legal sense."

The prosecution was expected to sum up today as the trial, which began a fortnight ago, comes to an end. Dowds phoned 999 on the evening of November 21 after discovering Miss Finn's body.

The former Regis School English teacher told the operator that he had stabbed her to death, but had no memory of what had happened.