Sixth-former jailed for stabbing boyfriend to death

Published: 3:01PM GMT twenty-six February 2010

Katherine McGrath, 19, plunged a beef blade in to the heart of Alyn Thomas, 22, during an evidence after a night out celebration with friends.

McGrath, of Brackla, Bridgend, South Wales, was privileged of attempted murder following a hearing progressing this month but found guilty of manslaughter.

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Sentencing her at Cardiff Crown Court to five years in a immature offenders" institution, Mr Justice Griffith Williams said: ""Only you know what essentially happened in the kitchen of your home but of this I am sure: the jury did not listen to the total truth.""

The decider added: "Clearly you and Alyn Thomas rowed. Whatever the trigger or the means of that row, my perspective is that he was not the usually one to action aggressively.

"I accept that you did not intend to kill or means him unequivocally critical damage and I am rebuilt to accept that you were annoyed in the non-legal sense."

He told McGrath that defending herself with a blade was an overreaction and said: "You took the hold up of a immature man.

"You deprived his parents, his family and his friends of their piece in his hold up and of the possibility to share in his future."

Mr Thomas, of Cymmer, nearby Neath, died in sanatorium after being stabbed in the kitchen of McGrath"s isolated family home in the early hours of Aug twenty-one last year.

In an stroke matter he review out in court, Stephen Thomas, the victim"s father, said: "It is a parent"s misfortune fright - reception a phone call in the early hours of the sunrise observant that your kid has been certified to hospital, but afterwards to be told that your kid has been stabbed, it turns in to a vital nightmare.

"I shall never dont think about on foot in to the relations room at Bridgend Hospital and carrying Lynne (Mr Thomas"s mother) nod me by screaming "He"s dead" and afterwards violation down in floods of tears."

He pronounced the loss of their son had ravaged his family and added: "I could not suppose the suffering I had to experience when I was carrying to select flowering plants and hymns for a wake use and carrying to select garments to skirt Alyn in his coffin rather than carrying the honour of receiving him selling for a fit for his wedding."

During the hearing the jury listened McGrath"s 999 call in that she told the operator: "He"s my beloved and he, like, came and pounded me and I didn"t know what to do."

She additionally told the user he pushed her to the building and squabble at her and attempted to strike her.

John Charles Rees QC, defending, pronounced McGrath constructed the blade to shock off Mr Thomas when he became assertive and she had not meant to harm him.

At the sentencing currently he pronounced it was "self-defence left as well far".