A pensioner tearfully told a court he killed his wife after "feeling a burning anger and rage" when she told him his son was not his.

Stuart Robertson strangled his partner Dawn to death before placing a crucifix in her lifeless hands, taking a bus into St Helens town centre and handing himself in to the police after "pausing for a cup of tea" at Costa Coffee. The 69-year-old has admitted manslaughter but denies murder and is currently standing trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

He began giving evidence to the jury today, Wednesday. Wearing a light grey checked jumper and grey tracksuit bottoms in the witness box and sporting a shaved head, Robertson was asked by his counsel Stanley Reiz KC about a series of incidents which had seen the police called to the couple's home on Cannon Street in St Helens over the course of several years.

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These included an occasion in 2012 in which Mrs Robertson was said to have damaged their front door with a hammer after losing her keys, a drunken argument at their son's home later the same year, an allegation in 2015 that he had "pushed her into a fridge" and another in 2017 stating he had "grabbed her around the throat and threatened her with a butter knife". No action was ultimately taken against either party in relation to any of these complaints.

Robertson described his partner as having been "abusive and aggressive" towards him and said her behaviour "steadily got worse". He told jurors their relationship was "breaking down" in the early part of 2023 and added: "I stayed in my room all day and my wife stayed downstairs, we hardly had any contact."

The retired warehouse manager stated his wife, who he married in 1986 and had two children with, would drink "between two and two-and-a-half bottles" of brandy per day and said he had planned to move out of the marital address following a spell in hospital due to ulcers on his legs during February and April 2023. Mr Reiz asked: "Once you arrived home, how did you get on with your wife?"

Robertson replied: "When she was sober, ok. She was drinking from about 7 in the morning."

Mr Reiz continued: "What was her behaviour like?"

Robertson said: "It was abusive and aggressive."

Mr Reiz: "Was your relationship much the same throughout the following months, leading up to the 15th of November?"

Robertson said: "It became a daily occurrence of abuse. If she was sober when I got up at 9 o'clock she’d say good morning, that was the best that I ever got from her."

The defendant said of the morning before Mrs Robertson's death: "She was downstairs in the living room. She’d been there since about 7am. I’d heard her go downstairs. When I got up in the morning she had a drink in her hand, a glass of brandy."

Mr Reiz asked whether she had "said anything" to Robertson when he got up at around 9am, and he responded: "No. I said good morning to her and she didn’t reply."

The defence silk continued: "Did she say anything to you that morning?"

Robertson said: "Yes, eventually. She said you’d better get the £500 out of your account, as I was due a winter fuel payment.

"I said I'd get a cup of tea and a cigarette and I’d check my bank account. I checked it and it hadn’t gone in."

Mr Reiz enquired "how she had responded", and Robertson stated: "That I was a f***ing liar, s*** and worthless, scum of the Earth, lowest of the low, that sort of behaviour. She was angry.

"I think I said it's not my fault that it's not gone in. Her response was, 'I don't care, you said you'd give me that money'.

Robertson continued: "I knew in part that she wanted it for alcohol, but other than that I didn’t know. She told me I'd have to go up to the ATM and draw money out of her account, but when the money went into my account I'd have to transfer it to her.

"I just said ok. It was better than what would have happened, which would have been more abuse."

Robertson said that when he returned home from withdrawing the money, his wife was "still sat in the chair with a glass in her hand". He added: "I walked into the living room and I said 'I've got your money'.

"She carried on with abuse about how useless and worthless I was. Piece of s***, scum, I shouldn’t have to do this, it should have come out of your f***ing bank account, you’re not worth a penny."

Mr Reiz said: "She said abusive things to you. How are you feeling?"

Robertson replied: "I just turned around and said 'blah blah f***ing blah again'."

He then appeared to become emotional and started crying. Mr Reiz asked: "How were you feeling when she had abused you?"

Robertson said: "Fed up of it. She got up out of the chair and came towards me."

He pointed his finger as he said: "She had her finger like that, or raising her hand in that manner."

Robertson said she was "less than 12 inches" away from him at this point and said his own hands were "at his side". He continued: "She said 'you’re nothing but a f***ing slave to me, you live here because I let you live here, you’ll do exactly what I say, have you got me or have you f***ing got me', something like that."

Mr Reiz asked whether he had "said anything back". Robertson sighed and shook his head before saying: "Yes I did. I turned and said I'm off to [their son] Michael's. That was where I went when things started escalating.

"She said why the f*** are you going round there again? He’s not even your f***ing son."

Robertson held his hand a few inches away from his face as he said: "She was that far from me when she said it."

Mr Reiz asked: "Had she ever said anything like that to you before?"

Robertson replied: "No."

Mr Reiz: "Did you believe her?"

Robertson: "At that moment in time, yes."

Mr Reiz: "What was going through your mind?"

Robertson: "I couldn’t tell. Lots of jumbled up thoughts. Michael wasn’t my son, she’s lied to me for 36 years. I turned round and said 'shut the f*** up, you f***ing b****' and my hands went round her neck.

He continued: "My hands went up around her neck and we stumbled backwards. I believe we ended up on the chair. I squeezed. The next thing I knew, she was dead."

Mr Reiz: "Were you applying pressure to her throat?"

Robertson: "I must have, yes."

Mr Reiz: "Do you remember doing so?"

Robertson: "I remember squeezing, but how hard I don’t know."

Mr Reiz: "Do you remember how long you did that for?"

Robertson: "No."

Mr Reiz: "How long did it feel?"

Robertson: "Two minutes. Something like that."

Mr Reiz: "What's the next thing you remember?"

Robertson: "Pushing up off the chair and looking down."

He began crying again as he said: "I said 'you stupid b******, what have you done?'. I was panicking, I didn’t know what to do at first."

Robertson took a tissue and wiped his eyes before Mr Reiz asked: "How did she look to you?"

He responded: "Uncomfortable, awkward. Dead. I believe I put my finger to her neck. I didn’t feel anything."

Mr Reiz: "What was going through your mind?"

Robertson shook his head and replied: "What to do."

Mr Reiz asked: "What did you do?"

He said: "I looked at Dawn. I thought she needs to be more comfortable than she is, so I moved her down to where the police found her. I attempted to lift her by putting my hands under her back and her knees.

"She was a dead weight, I couldn’t lift her. I gripped her by the arm and leg and dragged her to where she was found by the police. I put a pillow under her head. I put a crucifix in her hands because we’re both religious, Dawn more so than me."

Mr Reiz put to him: "Can you explain why you did what you’ve just told the jury you did? Why did you strangle her to death?"

Robertson said: "I can’t explain that. I just felt this burning anger and rage when she told me that Michael wasn’t my son."

Mr Reiz asked: "What were you intending to happen?"

Robertson said: "I just wanted her to shut up with the abuse. That was all I wanted to do."

He told the court that he then left home around 2.45pm and "put his coat and hat on and caught the bus into town". Mr Reiz asked him: "Where were you intending to go?"

Robertson said: "I was debating whether to go to the railway station or the police station. The railway station was in that direction, and the police station was in that direction.

"I decided I'd have a cup of tea and make my choice. There’s a café I always go to that was closed so I went to Costa, which was the next available café.

"I sat in there and thought about what to do. I thought should I jump a train to Manchester or Liverpool, get the ferry to Ireland and disappear over the border? Then I thought, there are too many CCTV cameras. What would I live on?

He continued: "I had my bank card, but as soon as I used that that would be traced. So I decided to go to the police station and hand myself in."

Mr Reiz asked: "How did you feel?"

Robertson wiped his eyes with a tissue again as he replied: "Disgusted. I broke every rule in I believed in as a human being. I’d taken a life. I had no right to do it."

Robertson was then asked about his visit to the police station. He continued: "I said 'you’re never gonna believe this, but I've killed my wife'.

"He [the police officer] asked how it had happened. I tried to put it across, I didn’t know what I was really doing. I was shocked. Disgusted at what I'd done."

Mr Reiz concluded his questioning by asking: "In those moments, when you had your hands around her neck, were you intending to kill her?"

Robertson said: "No."

Mr Reiz continued: "Were you intending to cause her really serious harm?"

Robertson replied: "No."

Mr Reiz asked: "What were you intending to do?"

Robertson replied: "Stop the abuse and just shut her up, but not in that way."

Mr Reiz said: "In your mind, how was that going to shut her up?"

Robertson answered: "Because it would stop her speaking."

In cross-examination, prosecution counsel Peter Glenser KC cited four previous occasions in 2004, 2005, 2009 and 2017 on which Mrs Robertson had called the police to report that her husband had strangled her. None of these incidents resulted in action being taken against Robertson.

Mr Glenser said: "Is all of that, all of those previous reports of you manually strangling your wife, is all of that foreshadowing a hideous coincidence or is the truth that that is how you used your power over your weaker, smaller wife when things got out of hand? That you’re a little bit handy with putting your hands around her throat?"

Robertson replied: "No. It’s not true."

Mr Glenser also asked whether he had "put his hand over her mouth to quicken her departure from this Earth". Robertson said: "Not that I'm aware sir."

He was questioned on how soon after his return to the property that the "struggle" had occurred, and he reported that it would have been "within 15 or 20 minutes". Mr Glenser asked: "How did you feel when you realised she was, at least, not breathing?"

Robertson said: "I was shocked and panicking."

Mr Glenser asked if Robinson had called an ambulance or tried CPR for his wife. Robertson said he had not called 999 or tried CPR as he "was not trained and didn't know how".

Mr Glenser asked: "You didn't try to get her any medical help whatsoever."

Robertson replied: "No sir."

Mr Glenser said: "On your version of events, she must have been dead by about 20 to one. What did you do between quarter to one and the time we next see you at 14.47? What were you doing in that house alone with your wife’s dead body? Not calling the police, not attempting to give her CPR."

Robertson: "I went into a panic. I calmed myself down. I laid my wife out. I smoked some cigarettes and I tried to decide what to do."

Mr Glenser told the jury of four men and eight women during the prosecution's opening on Tuesday that Robertson had been seen on CCTV withdrawing £500 in cash at a Morrisons Daily store near to their home at around 12.20pm on November 15 last year. Robertson was then captured on camera again shortly after 2.45pm as he boarded an Arriva bus into the town centre.

Wearing a change of clothing, the dark garments he had been seen wearing earlier now replaced by a fluorescent jacket and a bucket hat, he left the bus at 3.20pm near to Church Square Shopping Centre then "paused for a cup of tea" at a branch of Costa Coffee. Shortly before 3.45pm, he entered St Helens Police Station and confessed he had "snapped" and strangled his 62-year-old wife to death after she had been verbally abusive to him.

A post-mortem investigation subsequently concluded a cause of death of "compression of the neck and strangulation". Under interview, Robertson gave a prepared statement in which he accepted killing his wife but said he had "simply lost control".

He later pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. Mr Glenser added: "He says, by his plea, that although he was responsible for her death, he did not intend to kill her or do her serious bodily harm.

"He may say in the alternative that he suffered some loss of control, such that would reduce his culpability to manslaughter. On any view, the relationship between Mr and Mrs Robertson was deeply troubled.

"She was an alcoholic and was frequently verbally aggressive towards Mr Robertson. The police were called to their address on many, many occasions.

"He would be sober, she would be drunk. She would make false allegations against him, and her drinking seriously affected her relationship with her adult children."

Robertson denies murder. The trial, before the Honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC, continues.

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