Sharon Edwards: Newly-wed bride ‘killed her lawyer husband after he lost his job’, court hears
Sharon Edwards is accused of murdering her criminal lawyer husband at their home two months after they married
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A jealous new bride who “perhaps quite liked the idea of being Mrs Edwards, a solicitor’s wife” fatally stabbed her husband after he was told he was being made redundant, a court has heard.
Sharon Edwards, 42, is accused of murdering criminal lawyer David Edwards, 51, at their home in Chorley, Lancashire, two months after they married in Las Vegas in June last year.
Astonishingly, the couple went to a pub after the attack and the police had to take Mrs Edwards home after she was found arguing in the street with her husband. He was found dead in his bed the following day.
Mr Edwards, who met his future wife in June 2014, was “plainly besotted” with Mrs Edwards, while she was “domineering”, “possessive” and “very jealous”, the prosecutor, Anne Whyte QC, said.
He was also recorded saying that his new wife hit him “rather hard” and could “knock him out with one punch”.
Miss Whyte told Manchester Crown Court: “The prosecution say that Sharon Edwards was violent towards David Edwards well before his death and that David Edwards’ response to that violence was to tolerate it and not report it to the police. Despite the turbulence that was to characterise their relationship, he... plainly felt that she was the one for him.”
After returning from a holiday in Spain in August last year, the couple argued and Mrs Edwards’ 19-year-old daughter – who is to be a witness for the prosecution – saw Mr Edwards in the bathroom “calling for help” and cleaning blood from his chest, the court was told. Ms Edwards allegedly then told her daughter that said she had put a kitchen knife to his chest but had not intended to hurt him.
The court heard that Mr Edwards would not say what had happened and despite bleeding from the chest and leg and being “visibly injured”, the couple went to the pub.
Ms Whyte said: “There was blood on his T-shirt and shorts and around his leg. There was a cut to his head and blood coming down his neck. People expressed concern about him [at the pub] although Sharon Edwards notably did not.”
Jurors were told the couple were in a habit of drinking too much but that Mr Edwards’ consumption increased after meeting his partner and, with it, “his injuries certainly increased”.
The pair were later found arguing in the street, where Ms Edwards was “behaving in an accusing way” before being taken home by police.
The following morning Mr Edwards was found dead in bed with visible injuries. Blood was also found on the carpet and in the kitchen.
During the couple’s relationship, Mr Edwards’ friends and colleagues were said to have been “very concerned” for his welfare after seeing his injuries. Ms Whyte said that he would say he fell down the stairs or had walked into the garage door.
“They were injuries which he would, quite often, seek to minimise when people asked him about. Those who knew him were highly sceptical about his protestations that his injuries had been caused accidentally,” she said.
Others said they started to see a decline in “his appearance, his professionalism as a solicitor, in his self-respect”. Ms Whyte said he would appear at court looking dishevelled and had disclosed to some colleagues that he had been hit with objects including a coffee table, an ashtray and had his ear bitten.
Before his holiday he was asked not to come back to work which “was perhaps just one of the reasons why the holiday was not an unmitigated success”.
The trial continues.