Emma-Jayne Magson: Woman loses second appeal against murder conviction

A woman who stabbed her boyfriend to death during an argument has had a second appeal against her murder conviction thrown out.

Emma-Jayne Magson was found guilty for a second time in March 2021 of murdering 26-year-old James Knight at her home in Leicester.

Now the Court of Appeal has dismissed claims that direction given to the jury regarding self-defence was inadequate.

The 29-year-old will continue serving a 17-year sentence.

Magson was originally convicted of the murder in 2016 but that conviction was overturned and she was retried last year.

She had previously alleged that Mr Knight had been strangling her, so she stabbed him with a steak knife in self-defence.

The appeal considered whether the judge in her trial should have presented elements of the "householder defence" to the jury.

However Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett, found this defence was not relevant to this case because Mr Knight was not a trespasser and had a key to the property.

He said: "There was no evidence or suggestion that it was any part of [Magson's] thinking that [Mr Knight] was a trespasser at the time of the stabbing.

Regardless, he found the "householder defence" would have "made no difference to the outcome of [the] case".

A renewed application for leave to appeal against her sentence was also rejected by the court.

Following the ruling, Mr Knight's mother condemned Magson's repeated attempts to have her conviction overturned.

Trish Knight said in a statement: "For years, I and the rest of James's family have had to endure constant unnecessary appeals which have all deservedly failed and have put us all through years of additional anguish.

"We all hope that this is now behind us so that we can grieve and cherish his memory without this being in the shadows."

Magson stabbed Mr Knight in the chest with a steak knife in the early hours of 27 March 2016.

The couple had returned from a night out, during which Magson had drunk large amounts of alcohol. Mr Knight had also drunk alcohol and taken cocaine.

The judge said Mr Knight had been behaving "stupidly and somewhat aggressively" as a result of the cocaine, at one point telling a man "no-one was going to get his girl".

The couple then got a taxi home but started arguing, and the driver asked them to get out after Magson was seen kicking out at Mr Knight.

CCTV then captured Mr Knight as he pushed Magson against a car, causing her to fall to the ground at about 00:45 GMT.

Magson is thought to have stabbed Mr Knight at her home between 01:10 and 01:30.

The steak knife penetrated his body to a depth of 11.5cm as it passed through one of his lungs and his pulmonary artery.

After delivering the blow to his heart, Magson is said to have left him for about half an hour before calling an ambulance.

She did not tell the operator he had been stabbed and when warned there could be a delay, she said "No, that's fine, don't worry about it."

In her evidence, Magson claimed she had grabbed the steak knife in self-defence because Mr Knight had a hand around her neck and she could not breathe.

While the jury did not accept this, the judge said there was no evidence Magson intended to kill Mr Knight.

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