Man gets 18 years for killing wife
A KILMARNOCK man acknowledged killing his spouse by stabbing her, but he claimed he was protecting himself from her attempt to kill him.
The 53-year-old George Clark disputes killing his wife Sharlene on October 12, 2018, at 25 Lindsay Drive.
The pair, who got married a second time barely seven months before Sharlene passed away, had a difficult relationship, according to testimony given to the Glasgow High Court on Tuesday.
Although Clark and Helen Clark, his second wife, were no longer living together at the New Farm Loch home, he disclosed to the court that they had divorced.
However, love grew when he saw Sharlene again, and 27 years to the day after their first wedding on March 11, last year, they were remarried.
When Clark remarried 44-year-old Sharlene, he told defence QC Gordon Jackson that he felt as though all of his Christmases had arrived.
“I loved her and I thought everything was going to be good,” he continued.
Although Clark acknowledged that their relationship was tumultuous, he expressed to the judge his wish to remain in contact with Sharlene when they retired.
He claimed that Sharlene had been fighting with him intermittently the night before she was fatally stabbed, and that she had been afraid he would abandon her and return to Helen Clark.
According to Clark, Sharlene brought his hunting knife into the living room after finding it in the kitchen, and he removed it from her.
He added that a few minutes later, they were laying on the sofa, kissing and snuggling, and that she had come back to the kitchen with a kitchen knife, which he had taken from her once more.
“Sharlene lifted the kitchen knife and proceeded to stab me in the neck,” he continued. I took hold of her hand and used my free hand to seize the hunting knife.
She extended her neck in disbelief as I lunged for her throat with the hunting knife. I gave her a chest stab. Sharlene was attempting to use the knife to kill me.
Alastair Carmichael, the prosecutor, stated to Clark during the cross-examination: “You lost control and stabbed her three times in the chest and once in the neck.”
and Clark replied: “I lost control because she was trying to kill me. I think anybody would have done the same. I know she was trying to put a knife in my neck. I was just trying to defend myself.”
He said in court that Sharlene, who had consumed whisky and mixed narcotics that evening, intended to murder him.
“She had three marks on her face, a stab wound on her neck, and three stab wounds to the chest, one of which went through her heart,” Mr. Carmichael said to Clark. “Yes,” Clark answered.
Prior to Charlene’s passing, throughout their 14 months together, she resided at a women’s shelter. Clark said that this was a tactic to try to get a new house rather than because he was assaulting her.
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