The relationship between Christine and Ian Rawle was compared to The Twits during the prosecution opening, a spiteful couple from a Roald Dahl children’s book who play nasty practical jokes on each other. The 27-year marriage between the Rawles has felt anything but amusing or entertaining and the headline-grabbing Dahl comparison has, perhaps, ended up feeling a little tasteless during the month-long trial at Exeter crown court.
The prosecution alleged that Christine Rawle, described in court as a hypnotherapist and “horse whisperer”, now 70, murdered the 72-year-old garage owner, labourer and rally driver Ian Rawle in temper after a row over money, stabbing him “full square” in the back and driving the knife up to the hilt. It claimed that the attack, at the 20-acre north Devon farm they shared, came hours after Rawle had told her daughter: “I hope the cunt dies” and following the stabbing, rather than trying to save him, she put her dogs away and made arrangements for her horses to be looked after.
The prosecution also said that Rawle had stabbed her husband once before and claimed she played awful tricks on him over the years including adding Viagra to his tea, putting chilli powder in his underpants and wiping her bottom with his ties. However, the defence claimed there was an explanation for all of it – that she had been subject to years of bullying, intimidation, coercion and physical and sexual attacks, a “constant burn of abuse” that left her trapped in “invisible handcuffs”.
The defence claimed her bad behaviour was “resistance” to his controlling tendencies and her final lashing out was self-defence or a “loss of control” following 40 years of depression and at a time she was suffering from complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
Certainly, it is not the sort of subject matter for a children’s story.
The Rawles met in the early 1990s in north Devon when Christine bought a car from Ian. The prosecution claimed Christine, who had three children, was homeless at the time after a failed marriage and “stole” Ian from another woman.
Christine, however, claimed Ian “stalked” her, appearing outside her home at night and told her: “I cannot let you go.” She said he was “all over her like a rash” and she was “smitten” by the attention.
It was a bizarre courtship. Between May 1992 and November 1994 – before they were married – they made a total of five reports about each other to the police. Christine claimed Ian had sabotaged her car and thrown a statue through a window, while he claimed she had broken into his home and vandalised one of his vehicles by putting a hosepipe through the sunroof and filling it with water.
Despite all this, they married in 1995 and lived on an £800,000 20-acre farm, Kittywell Wood. Those who knew them said there was love in the marriage – but violence was never far away.
In…
2024-03-22 07:32:44
Source from www.theguardian.com