Police on the scene where Jaesock Lee was stabbed to death (Picture: SWNS)

A woman has been cleared of stabbing her husband to death after she told a jury he beat and raped her almost every day.

Hyojung Lim, 44, moved to a flat in South London with her husband Jaesok Lee, 40, after they fled North Korea.

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But the relationship was fraught, and deteriorated before Lee’s death when his wife found out about an affair, a court heard.

Prosecutors alleged she killed him in revenge after he got his lover pregnant, saying she had text him ‘If you do that, you will die all of a sudden’.


Another text, sent five days later, read: ‘I am as angry as I can be and I feel like making something happen now.’

The scene on New Malden High Street (Picture: SWNS)

The jury at Wood Green Crown Court heard that Lim knifed her husband in the throat and chest at their home in New Malden, Surrey, with such force the tip of the blade snapped off and embedded in his spinal cord.



Lim told a flatmate after the killing: ‘I have revenged him for the past 13 years’.

Plastic surgeon posted photos of his patients going under the knife on social mediaShe also made similar statements in a blood-stained note scrawled immediately after the killing describing her revenge at perceived wrongs her husband had done her, the court heard.

But she told the court she acted in self defence when she stabbed him after suffering years of violence and sexual abuse, both in their homeland and in the UK.

A jury of seven men and five women deliberated for more than 20 hours before acquitting Lim of her husband’s murder and manslaughter.

The couple fled North Korea (Picture: SWNS)

The couple had lived at the flat in New Malden – home to the Europe’s largest North Korean community – for several months after fleeing the country and arriving here in 2007.

Lim met his lover Yuni Choi, a Korean woman from Leeds, on social media, the court heard. They had not known each other for long but spent a weekend in London and some time in Leeds, the court heard.

‘They spent four happy days together and the only interruption was his mobile telephone, which rang constantly, but he did not answer the calls,’ said the prosecutor.

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When he eventually did pick up, Mr Lee’s mistress was shocked to discover it was his wife at the other end who told her he had cheated many times.

‘Mr Lee then snatched the phone away and told his wife he wanted to leave her as his new flame was pregnant.’

Jurors heard that neighbours often heard the two argue but never saw any physical violence.

On the night of her husband’s death, neighbours were woken up by shouting and found Lim sat on the bed next to her wounded husband who lay under the duvet.

During an interview with police on 3 March, Lim said her husband pulled a knife on her in their bedroom after they got back from a meal at a restaurant.

‘I did not wish to kill Mr Lee but I had no choice. It was him or me.’