Michael Barnard jailed for stabbing wife 46 times in Hextable

Shannon Barnard, 21, suffered multiple wounds to her limbs and body, including her lungs, liver and bowels, as Michael Barnard repeatedly knifed her, telling her she "had to die", in their home in Hextable.

Fourteen injuries were to her chest and breasts alone, with four penetrating her internal organs, and 10 to her abdomen. Both her lungs collapsed and she has also been left with substantial and numerous scars which may require skin grafts.

Mrs Barnard spent 17 days in hospital. She later told police she felt "every blow" and thought she would die. Doctors said she was "extremely fortunate" to have survived.

But Maidstone Crown Court heard she has forgiven her 25-year-old husband and plans to start a family with him on his release from prison.

Speaking during Barnard's sentencing hearing, she replied when asked how she saw their future: "Just to be together and have the life that we both want with each other and have a family."

The court heard she had also been visiting Barnard in prison "on every occasion possible", and plans to see him twice weekly.

She agreed with his barrister David Taylor that he had told her he was sorry and how much he loved her, and when asked if she forgave him, Mrs Barnard replied: "Of course."

The frenzied attack occurred two weeks after she found out about her husband's infidelity during an evening of drinking and consuming the legal high, nitrous oxide, and while his wife was sleeping just feet away.

The court heard he was later accused of raping the other woman but he claimed the woman had consented to "passionate sex".

Mrs Barnard was said to have accepted he had simply cheated on her.

But in the following days there were a number of "confrontations and conversations" which led to tension and volatility, said prosecutor Christopher May.

Just hours before she was knifed, Mrs Barnard, who is also known as Hamida, wrote a note in which she described how she felt her husband was "torturing" her.

Barnard also penned a similar note in which he spoke of never "cheating" on his wife again and being "a good person".

But the court heard after Mrs Barnard went to sleep that night on the sofa, she woke the following morning to find her husband armed with the blade.

He said "You've got to die" and stabbed her repeatedly, said Mr May.

"The Crown say she was extremely fortunate to survive. She also sustained many wounds to her hands and arms, sometimes referred to as defensive-type injuries which the Crown say were caused as she tried to fight him off as she defended herself from the attack upon her."

Barnard himself suffered a "significant but self-inflicted" wound to his chest.

A jury convicted Barnard, of Lower Road, Hextable, of attempted murder.

He was however cleared of the rape charge.

A psychiatrist concluded he would have been suffering from a short-lived adjustment disorder at the time, precipitated by a stressful event and known to cause extreme anxiety, paranoia, emotional thoughts, and aggressive outbursts.

But the court heard it would not have affected his ability to form intent to kill.

 

'LUCKY TO SURVIVE'

Jailing Barnard, Judge Philip Statman said: "Your wife was extraordinarily lucky to have survived this ordeal. The reason why she did so was down to the very quick medical response together with the extraordinary skill of the surgeons who undoubtedly in my judgment saved her life.

"This was a relentless and horrifying assault upon her. It was ferocious, and looking at the photographs of her body and indeed of the scene, one can see the amount of blood that she lost, and significantly the scars that will accompany her throughout her life.

"Each day when your victim gets up in the morning and looks down at her body she can see, and will do for the rest of her life that which you did to her.

"I am completely satisfied that to set about your wife in the way which you did in the matrimonial home constitutes the gravest breach of trust that one could possibly imagine. This is a very serious case of attempted murder."

Barnard showed no reaction other than to blow a kiss to his wife who was sitting with his family in the public gallery. Her family sat separately.

Judge Statman added that although it was "not a court of morals", he was of the view that it was Barnard's infidelity, coupled with threats he later received, which triggered his mental disorder.

Mrs Barnard herself had told the court she had noticed changes in her husband's personality and was so scared she kept a knife under their bed as they tried to reconcile.

But having also heard her tell the court she forgave him for trying to kill her, Judge Statman said he had to put emotions aside and consider the public "concern and outcry" over escalating knife crime.

 

'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?'

The couple, said to have married young, were living at the Valley Park caravan site near Swanley when the horrific stabbing happened on January 11.

In a video interview recorded by police two weeks later as she recovered from her horrific wounds in hospital, Mrs Barnard said her husband had been talking to his dad on the phone.

But as she stood in the kitchen area of their chalet caravan her husband passed her the phone, and then attacked her with the knife.

She described it as one she usually used for chopping meat and estimated it to be the length of an A4 piece of paper.

She felt the first strike to her stomach. "I screamed and then somehow I was in the front room. After he stabbed me I dropped to the floor. His dad was still on the phone and I was screaming 'He's got a knife'," she told police.

"I was on my back on the floor and Mike was literally on top of me and was just stabbing me. He was on his knees and leant over me.

"I remember him trying to move my arms away and I was just screaming. He didn't say anything apart from when I said 'Stop. I've got to call my dad'.

"He said 'No, you've got to die'. That was the only thing he said the whole time. He said it just once when I was on the floor. I was just thinking I was going to die, that I was dead."

He stopped when his parents and an uncle arrived at the caravan. She described how her eyes were rolling and she could hear her father-in-law shouting to his son "What have you done?"

Barnard is now on medication and a psychiatrist concluded he was "highly unlikely" to suffer from such a mental disorder again.