Cleveland man guilty of murdering ‘divorce party’ wife

Jones said he had no memory of stabbing his ex-wife Katrina

A Cleveland man has been found guilty of murdering his ex-wife as she prepared for a divorce party.

Brian Jones, 63, used a kitchen knife to stab mother-of-two Katrina Jones 12 times at her home in Marske, Teesside, in November.

Jones admitted to the stabbing but denied murder, claiming he was provoked by the fact she was holding the party.

He was convicted of her murder by a jury at Teesside Crown Court and will be sentenced later.

The jury took eight hours to convict Jones of murder, by a unanimous verdict.

He was arrested on 27 November after he called 999, telling an operator: “I have stabbed my wife, please come quickly. Will you please come and save her?”

Divorce party banner

Police and paramedics found Mrs Jones’s body on the living room floor of the house in Church Close, Marske, East Cleveland.

It had a divorce party banner draped across it.

The court heard during a two-week trial that a month before the killing, the couple’s 10-year marriage was legally dissolved.

Seven months earlier, Mrs Jones filed for divorce, citing her husband’s “unreasonable behaviour” as the reason for the petition.

Franz Muller QC, prosecuting, said Jones had wanted to patch up the marriage.

It later emerged that Mrs Jones had been having an affair with a friend from her past for more than a year.

Mr Muller said she had told her new lover her husband had warned that “if he couldn’t have her, no other man could”.