A London jeweller accused of killing her boyfriend has told a court that she took out life insurance over fears that she would be murdered by her abusive partner.
Elizabeth Hart-Browne, 27, allegedly stabbed to death her partner of six years, Stephen Rayner. She said she received domestic violence and death threats from her boyfriend, who was found dead in their flat in September 2016.
“Stephen got very angry. He was punching me and then he bit my nose. He had his hands around my throat,” Hart-Browne told the court, as quoted by The London Evening Standard.
The BBC also quoted the mother-of-two as saying: “I believed I was in danger of him killing me and I didn’t want my kids to be left with nothing.”
According to Hart-Browne, Rayner had a fascination with Charles Bronson and took on the criminal’s persona when he got angry.
“[Bronson] is Britain’s most notorious prisoner and he liked his aggression – there were a lot of stories about him in prison attacking other prisoners and prison guards,” she was quoted as saying in the reports.
“His whole accent changed, his whole being would change and I couldn’t get through to him,” she went on saying during the trial, which is set to continue.
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