"I did not mean to kill him," the Kildare woman accused of killing her partner by stabbing him with a steak knife has told a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury.
"I just thought I had nicked him. I wish he was alive today," Ms Nicola Brereton (41) said on day-six of her manslaughter trial. She said she had struck out at him with the knife because she was afraid of him and felt she was in danger. "I loved him. I loved him 'til the day he died," she told her counsel.
Ms Brereton, Church Street, Kilcock, has pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter in September 2001 of John Smullen (52).
She described Mr Smullen as "a very violent man" who had assaulted her several times during the nine years of their relationship.
The trial has now reached its concluding stages before Judge Frank O'Donnell and a jury of nine men and three women.
