Woman who stabbed her husband claimed to have suffered many abuses, according to the court.
Penelope Jackson, 66, is accused of murdering her husband in the kitchen of their bungalow in Somerset.
A woman who stabbed her husband to death left a note stating that she had suffered many abuses over the years and accepted her punishment, according to the court.

Penelope Jackson, 66, is accused of murdering her husband, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel David Jackson, with whom she was married for 24 years, in the kitchen of their bungalow on February 13, according to the Bristol Crown Court. She admits to manslaughter but denies murder.

The jury previously heard that David Jackson, 78, managed to call 999, telling the operator that his wife had stabbed him, before screaming in pain when she allegedly stabbed him for the last time in their home in Berrow, Somerset.

On Tuesday, the jury, made up of four men and eight women, heard that the police found a note written on a pad next to the phone upon arriving at the scene.

It read: “To whom it may concern: I have suffered a lot of abuse over the years; check my history.”

It continued: “But I was a good father. However, tonight the mask slipped. That was unforgivable. I accept my punishment; let him rot in hell.”

Sheila Taylor, Jackson’s ex-wife and his second wife, testified in court on Tuesday.

Taylor told the jury that David Jackson left her in 1993 after revealing that he had had an affair with the accused, whom he had met while working for the army in Grantham, Lincolnshire.

Taylor testified before the court that she had maintained contact with her ex-husband and that, in the mid-90s, he seemed “very unhappy.”

Taylor stated that David Jackson feared that Penelope Jackson would “destroy him” and “ruin his career.”

Taylor recounted that she asked David Jackson why he didn’t leave her, to which he replied, “She’ll make me a Bobbitt.”

Taylor told the jury that this was a “current” reference to an American woman who had amputated her husband’s penis.

When asked by prosecutor Christopher Quinlan QC how David Jackson looked when he said this, Taylor responded, “He was very scared. He believed she was capable of doing it.”

Earlier, at Tuesday’s hearing, Quinlan read a statement to the court that Jackson had given to the police after his arrest, in which he claimed that David Jackson had been abusive and controlling towards her.

Penelope Jackson stated that the “extreme violence” began after the suicide of the victim’s son.