Mother stabbed as baby daughter slept

Miles Charters got involved in a row with the woman in the kitchen of her Cradley Heath home while cleaning a knife, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

The 27-year-old was still clutching it when he followed her upstairs where her three children were sleeping on April 20.

She grabbed hold of the blade, cutting the palm of her hand, and was knifed in the forearm when he pushed her onto the bed where the youngest girl slept.

The couple had been in a relationship for five months before the incident with him spending 'a couple' of nights a week at her address without any particular problems, the court was told.

But trouble flared after a visit by them to see the mother of the victim, explained Mr Gurdeep Garcha, prosecuting.

He said: "The defendant drank a couple of cans of lager before they went home by taxi. She put the children to bed and went back down stairs to watch television.

"The defendant was in the kitchen and suddenly went over to her and grabbed her arms tightly, pushing her over the cooker.

He was hurting her and threw her to the floor."

Mr Garcha continued: "Then he grabbed her hair and banged the head of the woman against the work surface in the kitchen.

"She went upstairs to get away from him, believing that he would not follow because of the children but he appeared in the bedroom holding the knife.

"She was scared for her life and grabbed at it. Then she put up her arm to protect herself after feeling the point of the blade against her face and received a substantial cut. She lost a lot of blood."

Charters stopped the attack after seeing the extent of the injury and offered to call for an ambulance. The victim ran to the house of a neighbour and was taken to hospital, where her wounds required 25 stitches. She is likely to be scarred for life.

Charters from Galton Road, Bearwood, who had several previous convictions involving violence against women, pleaded guilty to wounding.

He said in his basis of plea: "I followed her upstairs. The argument continued in the bedroom. I was holding the knife I had been washing in the kitchen. I pursued her onto the bed and at this point realised that I had cut her arm."

He was sent to prison for two years by Recorder David Mason QC who also made an indeterminate restraining order banning the defendant from making any contact with the victim and told him: "You had a heated, violent row, caused a very unpleasant injury but are full of remorse."