Clare Bailey, 44, was jailed for 22 years and four months imprisonment at Leeds Crown Court after pleading guilty to attempted murder following an incident in Harrogate last year when she launched a knife attack on her former lover’s wife. (North Yorkshire Police)
It was my day off work. And I was sitting, doing a diamond painting. The doorbell went. We had the Ring doorbell. So I looked to see who it was. I saw somebody standing there with many flowers, which was strange. And I wasn’t going to answer it. And I don’t know why– I still don’t know why I did.
She had sunglasses on, bright red hair, a COVID mask, and a bunch of flowers. And she just said these are for you. So I said sorry. And she said these are for you. And when she said it the second time, I noticed a knife handle behind the flowers she was holding. So I said, “No, I don’t want them. Thank you,” and tried to shut the door, and then she forced her way in.
I was shouting for help. And then my daughter, who was 14 at the time, came running down the stairs. And she actually– she went for the woman that was attacking me. The only other thing I remember is when she was behind me. She was trying to cut my throat. And that was the point that I knew that if I didn’t do anything, I wouldn’t survive. So I grabbed the knife with my hands, and I clung onto it, and it stopped her.
Woman Incarcerated After Failed Attempt to Kill Lover’s Wife
And then I remember being on the floor, and somebody– I don’t know who he was. I think he was– I don’t know if he was a neighbour, or if he was just somebody passing by, but somebody just– she’d left. I don’t remember her going, but she’d left, and this guy just came and said, are you OK? Do you need some help? And that’s when everyone started appearing to help.
I remember being taken out of the house by the paramedics, but I felt like I was in this tunnel. And I saw flashes of memories. And I thought that was it. I thought I was dying.
An amateur actress was jailed for life yesterday for battering and stabbing the wife of her lover to death.
The sentencing came after Jenny Cupit, aged 24, a hairdresser and mother of two, changed her plea to guilty of murder on the sixth day of her trial at Chester crown court.
Previously she had pleaded manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and had denied murdering Kathryn Linaker, a teacher aged 33, at Mrs Linaker’s detached home in Warrington, Cheshire, on April 17, last year.
Cupit sobbed in the dock in a grey suit and black blouse as Mr Justice Sachs described her as a serial liar whose crime was an outrage. “You killed a good woman out of lust for her husband and jealousy for her,” he said.
In mitigation, Cupit’s counsel claimed that she, Cupit, had been used and degraded by her husband, Chris Linaker.
The jury had heard Cupit began an affair after meeting Linaker at the Centenary Operatic and Dramatic Society in Warrington. She had videoed three-in-a-bed sessions with Mr Linaker and others, including her husband.
When, after 15 months, she realised he would not leave his wife and start a new life with her in Canada, she struck Mrs Linaker eight times with a heavy glass vase and stabbed her with a kitchen knife bought that day for £2.99 with such force the blade snapped, and continued her attack with a carving knife.
Four-month-old Holly Linaker, whose christening Cupit and her husband, Nick, had attended five days before, was present throughout.
The judge told Cupit: “I accept you had problems in your life, although it is tough to believe all you say – in my view, you are a serial liar.
Woman Sent to Prison for Attempted Murder of Lover’s Spouse
“No one hearing the evidence could fail to feel utter revulsion and disgust at your lifestyle and social circle.”
Her crime had “irreversibly damaged” Mrs Linaker’s two children and her own. The judge said he would later make a recommendation to the Home Secretary on the length of her prison term.
Mr Linaker, who left court without comment, watched impassively as the defence counsel, Adrian Fulford QC, made a plea of mitigation before sentencing. He accused Mr Linaker of locking a “frightened young woman” into a problematic relationship.
“Disaster, but not necessarily this disaster, must have been foreseen on his part,” said Mr Fulford, but he did not attempt to end it. “He encouraged her about pornography, sexual aids and sexual practices, which, given this defendant’s vulnerability, you may feel was wholly inappropriate. He degraded her; he used her.”
Mr Fulford said Cupit had frequently been treated for depression and had once tried suicide.
She did not give evidence, but the jury heard a taped interview with police in which she claimed Mrs Linaker had attacked her with a knife because of her suspicions over the affair. “She kept on saying that she hated me,” Cupit said. “She hated me for being so thin and so popular. Then I grabbed the knife, which slipped and went into her.”
