Wife, 84, can reunite with husband she stabbed Published duration 3 November 2016

image copyright Gloucestershire News Service image caption Elizabeth Stokes stabbed her husband several times with a pair of sewing scissors

An 84-year-old woman jailed for stabbing her husband can reunite with him after a restraining order was lifted.

Elizabeth Stokes was jailed for four-and-a half-years in 2014 for attacking John, 71, after wrongly believing he was having an affair.

Now the order banning her from contacting him has been lifted at Gloucester Crown Court.

Mr Stokes said he had forgiven his wife and fully recovered from his injuries.

'Terrible mistake'

The pair from Cheltenham will be able to visit each other under supervision of the probation service for the next two years before possibly being allowed to live together again.

During the hearing, Mr Stokes said: "I honestly believe her when she says she is very remorseful about what happened.

"She realises she made a terrible mistake.

image copyright Gloucestershire News Service image caption John Stokes said he had forgiven his wife Elizabeth and fully recovered from his injuries

"We want to carry on with our marriage and our relationship as soon as possible and I honestly believe it will work and things will be better in the future."

She said: "I had been suffering from stress for a long, long time. Of course, I am sorry for what I did."

Mrs Stokes was released from prison on parole on 26 October.

Car crash killed son

She was cleared of attempted murder in July 2014 but found guilty of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

At her trial, Gloucester Crown Court heard her son had been killed in a car crash a year before the attack and her first husband was "an abuser and philanderer".

Mr Stokes was attacked as he made his way back to their bed from the toilet in the early hours of the morning.

At the trial, Judge Jamie Tabor said it had been a deliberate and planned ambushing and she had put her sewing scissors in the bedroom in readiness for the attack.

A kitchen knife was also found in the bedroom and there had to be suspicions about why that was there, he added.