Murder accused 'hit by husband'

Gintaras Pupeliene is said to have slapped his wife

A woman accused of stabbing her husband in the heart in their Northampton home has told a jury she did not mean to kill him.

Daiva Pupeliene, 36, thrust a kitchen knife into 34-year-old Gintaras' chest during an argument on 17 December.

Ms Pupeliene, who denies murder, earlier told Northampton Crown Court she grabbed the nearest thing to her as her husband was beating her.

She told the jury Gintaras had accused her of prostituting herself.

Speaking through an interpreter Ms Pupeliene said: "I just felt this knife there and I took it. If it had been a plate I would have done it with a plate."

The prosecution allege he and his wife argued on the morning of the fatal attack because she had not gone to work and instead stayed in the shared house in Alcombe Road, drinking with another resident.

Ms Pupeliene told the court she and her husband of nearly 12 years had come to the UK from Lithuania in 2008 and were planning to bring their four children to England this year.

Lied to police

She said they quarrelled a lot, and her husband had hit her in the past.

When asked about the argument on 17 December, she said her husband "flew" at her on the bed, pushed her to the wall and started slapping her.

The jury heard a recording of the couple's argument on Gintaras' mobile phone in which he could be heard accusing her of prostituting herself.

Ms Pupeliene said: "At that moment I was sitting on the bed and I leaned and I felt a knife on the table and I grabbed this and I hit him."

She told the court she lied to police by saying her husband had returned to the house with a stab wound because was scared her children would be put into a children's home.

She insisted she did not intend to kill her husband, and said she still loved him.

The trial continues.