A woman who stabbed her husband to death told a 999 operator he was “bleeding to death with any luck”, a court has heard.

Penelope Jackson, 66, knifed David Jackson, 78, in their kitchen in Berrow, Somerset, on 13 February.

Bristol Crown Court heard the 999 call in full, in which she also told the operator: “I thought I’d get his heart but he hasn’t got one.”

Jackson refused to follow life-saving advice and said her husband was “moaning on the kitchen floor” and that “he’s got some holes in him”.

The victim had managed to call 999 himself, the jury were told, but could then be heard screaming as his wife allegedly drove the knife in a final time.

She calmly took over the call, telling the operator: “I’ve killed my husband, or tried to, because I’ve had enough.”

Asked where he was, she replied: “He’s in the kitchen bleeding to death with any luck.”

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Prosecutor Christopher Quinlan QC said Jackson would accept her husband’s unlawful killing or his manslaughter, but not his murder.

Other parts of the 18-minute call played on the first day of the trial revealed Jackson describing her husband as “a total s***” who “deserves everything he gets”.

She told the operator she had stabbed him because “he thought I couldn’t go through with it”.

“I’ll end up in prison, which is preferable to my life right now,” she added in the call.

As she was taken to the police car after her arrest, she allegedly said: “I know what I’ve done and, if I’ve not done it properly, I’ll be really annoyed.”

The couple married in 1996 and Mr Jackson was his wife’s fourth husband, and she was his third wife.

The court heard they had met in the army, where she worked in admin and accounts, while he worked up the ranks from private to lieutenant colonel.

Friends said they had occasional arguments but described them as happy together, with one telling police their relationship was “nothing out of the ordinary”.

However, jurors were told a row over a TV remote control saw police called to the house in December last year.

Jackson told officers she had locked her husband in the conservatory to “calm down” but that he had smashed his way out with a poker.

She also claimed he had been acting strangely after an operation to replace a battery in a brain implant used to manage a medical condition.

Mr Quinlan told the court it would hear about problems in their relationship, but added: “There is a difference, though, between a relationship with some occasional difficulties and one that is abusive and coercive and controlling.

“I use these words because these are the words Penelope Jackson used to describe her relationship with David Jackson – he was abusive, she said, he was controlling and he coerced her.”

The trial continues.

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