Murder accused tells of fatal knife tussle

A man accused of stabbing his ex-lover to death cried as he told a jury how they fought at her Walsall flat before she suffered a fatal injury.

Carl Truffas, aged 33, claimed Natalie James had been holding a knife in her right hand and they grappled as he tried to disarm her.

Young mother Miss James, 23, died after suffering a knife injury to the neck which severed an artery.

Wolverhampton Crown Court heard that Truffas had returned to Miss James' flat in Kings Road, Rushall, after breaking in earlier while she was out and smashing up a TV. The pair had exchanged a series of acrimonious text messages.

Truffas said yesterday: "I was just trying to get the knife from her and she had her back to me. I was coming over her right shoulder. She turned to the left. I think I grabbed her arm or wrist. I was trying to grab it.

"She was not willing to let me have the knife. I was reaching round. I was trying to get the knife and she was trying to turn away."

Truffas, who said he had not wanted to get back together with Miss James, cried as he told the court: "Natalie went down. Then she stood back up. She leaned down to the side by the unit. Her arms dropped to one side. He arms went limp.

"I had got the knife off her by that point.

"As she turned to face me I could see blood coming down the side from the top of her body."

She stumbled back to the left. I grabbed her round the waist, she was close by me. She slumped down the fridge to the bottom."

Truffas, of Kendall Court, Walsall Wood, told the jury he had taken one gram of cocaine for which he paid £40 and drank eight pints of lager while out the previous evening.

Under cross-examination by Miss Deborah Gould, prosecuting, Truffas denied he had smashed up the television because he thought she was seeing someone else.

Miss James had given birth to their son just six weeks before the killing. She also had a seven-year-old son from a previous relationship.

He has admitted causing criminal damage at the flat, but denies murder.

The case continues.