'Loving' wife stabbed husband to death after nearly 30 years of marriage, murder trial told
Daryl Berman, 71, who is accused of murdering her husband, David Berman, at their home in Prestwich, Bury(Image: Facebook/GMP)A ‘loving’ wife stabbed her 84-year-old husband to death in their home after nearly 30 years of marriage, a murder trial has heard. Daryl Berman, 71, has gone on trial accused of murdering her husband David Berman at their home in Butterstile Lane, Prestwich.She has pleaded not guilty to the charge. Prosecutors allege Mrs Berman killed her husband deliberately and stabbed him in the chest 'for a reason known only to her'.She told police that her husband’s death was an accident, and that he fell over in their kitchen and landed on a 'paring knife' she had been using for her lunch. Jurors were told Mrs Berman appeared ‘emotionless’ in the days after Mr Berman’s death, and was ‘acting as though nothing had happened’.Opening the case for the prosecution, Michael Brady KC said Mr Berman’s death was originally been treated as an accident by police. Mrs Berman called 999, at 1.55pm on March 13, to report that her husband was injured. He was pronounced dead at their home at 2.39pm, jurors were told.Police outside their home in Butterstile Lane, Prestwich, Bury(Image: Manchester Evening News)Mr Brady said it was only at the hospital that a pathologist was called in, after another doctor had been ‘troubled’ by the injury. Mr Brady said Dr Philip Lumb reported that the stab wound had ‘typical features of a homicide’. He claimed that though it was not impossible, an accidental fall was ‘very unlikely to have caused the fatal wound’.Mr Berman was also found to have a wound to his finger, which prosecutors claimed could have been caused while trying to defend himself. Jurors heard the couple’s 27 year marriage had been ‘loving and mutually supportive’, and that there had been no record of domestic violence or involvement with police. Mrs Berman was described as a ‘very supportive and loving wife’.But Mr Brady said Mr Berman’s family noticed aspects of Mrs Berman’s behaviour in the days following his death. “Although there is no set way to respond to and deal with grief in the days following David’s death, members of his family noticed how matter of fact and emotionless the defendant was,” Mr Brady said.“That she was acting as though nothing had happened and even seemed untroubled about going into the kitchen.” Mr Brady told jurors that Mrs Berman’s explanation that her husband’s injury had been caused accidentally was initially accepted by police.After Dr Lumb’s findings, another pathologist was instructed by the coroner, who agreed with Dr Lumb. Mr Berman had recently been diagnosed with dementia and sometimes used a walking stick, jurors heard. They were told that in the days before his death, ‘he had been in the best health his family had seen for some time’.Earlier on the day he died, Mr Berman had been with his daughter and great granddaughter to a play centre. Jurors heard Mrs Berman called 999 that afternoon and gave CPR under the instructions of the operator.Asked what had happened, the court heard she 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 at the scene saw Mr Berman lay on his back on the kitchen floor. Mr Berman’s daughter Debbie arrived after Mrs Berman had called her. “She [Debbie] told the police it was like a scene from an abattoir,” Mr Brady said. “She was understandably emotional.”After a police officer arrived and spoke with Mrs Berman, she is said to have told him: “You don’t think I’ve murdered him, do you?”Prosecutors said the officer also spoke with Mr Berman’s son, who said his father was ‘clumsy’ and was ‘always falling’. The responding officer called in CID, but the death was not initially treated as being potentially suspicious. It was five days later, on March 18, when Dr Lumb carried out a post-mortem examination.Mrs Berman was arrested on suspicion of murder that evening. During an interview with police, she told officers that she and her husband had both had lunch in the lounge, and that Mr Berman had offered to take her tray into the kitchen.She told police: “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’.“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.“And I found him face down.” She added: “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.“I got the shock of my life because I didn’t know where it was coming from, I just, I just couldn’t understand. And I was screaming, I said ‘David, David’, I said, ‘you can’t go like this’.”Mr Brady told jurors they had a ‘clear’ issue to decide on. 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, of Butterstile Lane, Prestwich, denies murder.Proceeding
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