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A Coventry woman stabbed her boyfriend in the back as he was cleaning up some food from the kitchen floor.

Tina Phillips had pleaded guilty at the crown court in Leamington as long ago as July last year to maliciously wounding her partner.

But there was a delay until the prosecution eventually decided not to ask for her to stand trial on a more serious charge of wounding with intent.

And following the preparation of a pre-sentence report on her, Phillips, 30, of Severn Road, Stoke, Coventry, was sentenced to 18 months in prison suspended for two years, with two years supervision.

Prosecutor Graeme Simpson said that in November 2013 Phillips and her partner spent a Sunday afternoon drinking, during which there were various arguments between them.

They had been to a pub where there had been ‘a bit of low-level violence, and when they got home Phillips prepared some food in the microwave oven, but some dropped on the floor.

Her partner went to get a dustpan – and as he was bending down to clean it up he felt a pain to his back.

“The defendant, using an eating knife, had stabbed him with a single blow to the lower part of his back. He turned round and saw her with the knife.”

An ambulance was called, but the victim then cancelled it because he was frightened about leaving the children in her care.

Later, an ambulance was called again and he was taken to hospital with a ‘penetrating wound’ to his back.

But at first, despite the obvious nature of his injury, he claimed he had fallen and hurt himself.

And when Phillips, who had no previous convictions, was arrested she accepted she had lashed out in the pub, but claimed that in the kitchen her partner had slipped on some food and injured himself.

Amy Jackson, defending, said Phillips has undertaken ‘a whole raft of courses’ and no longer has any contact with the man.

Sentencing Phillips, Recorder John Edwards told her: “I am going to take an exceptional course with you. Your life has moved on considerably since this happened.

“But what you did was an appalling act of spontaneous violence, and his life has been turned upside down by it. So has yours, to an extent.”

And he added: “I trust you will take the opportunity and never come before a court again.”