Husband who nearly died in knife attack by drunken wife begs her to return to him when she is released from six-year sentence

Derek Burns says he misses his wife Wendy and accepts she's had a troubled and violent past

He said the couple had been drinking and she had asked for a divorce before she attacked him



She stabbed him four times, tried to gouge his eyes out and repeatedly punched him in the face



A husband who was stabbed four times and almost had his eyes gouged out says he loves and forgives his wife, even after she nearly killed him.



Derek Burns was so badly injured in a prolonged drunken rage that police thought he was going to die.

Wendy Burns, 49, was jailed at Caernarfon Crown Court last week for six years after she admitted using an eight-inch knife to stab him four times, trying to gouge out his eyes, smashing him in the head with a glass ashtray and repeatedly punching his face.

Stabbed: Derek Burns was so badly injured in a prolonged drunken rage that police thought he was going to die

But Mr Burns, 62, says he stands by her. He said: 'I’ve written to her four times, telling her I forgive her, but have never received a reply.'

He said she’d been arrested several times for attacking him during their 15-year marriage.

And he told how he’d urged the court to reduce the charge against her from attempted murder to wounding with intent.

Mr Burns said his wife had a troubled past and he forgives her, misses her and still loves her.

'I wrote to her sister saying that if I could be of any help without getting in the way I would be happy to.

'I tried to get the charges lessened from attempted murder, and in the end they did. When my son told me she’d got six years I was in shock. I thought she’d only get three. I don’t believe we’ll ever get back together but I would have wanted to.

'She made a statement to her solicitor saying she didn’t love me any more, in fact she didn’t even like me.

Jailed: Wendy Burns had been arrested several times for attacking her husband during their 15 year marriage



'I would go and visit her but I don’t think I’ll get the chance - I don’t think she’d let me.'

Mr Burns, of Flint, North Wales, said he and his wife had been drinking on the night their relationship came to a shocking and violent end.

'I didn’t have a clue what she was about to do,' he said. We hadn’t been arguing, we’d just been sitting talking.

'I was sitting in one of these chairs. She was sitting on the settee. She suddenly said ‘I want a divorce’.

'She had asked quite a few times for a divorce, but it was always when she had been drinking.

'Whenever I asked her about it the next day she wouldn’t even remember it and would say ‘just ignore me, you know what I’m like when I get drunk’.

'But I said ‘okay, but you won’t be able to live here because this place is in my name’. I was trying to reason with her.

'She just stood up and the next thing I knew she was right on me with a knife.

'It was the biggest knife we’ve got, it’s so big it’s kept in a separate drawer in a sheath.

'She tried to stab me in the chest with it but I managed to twist my body and she hit me here,' he said, pointing at his side.

'I got as close to her as I could to try to stop her stabbing me again, and that’s when she stabbed me in the back.

'I was screaming at her ‘You’re going to ruin your life’.

'She had me down on the floor and smashed an ashtray into my head, and anything she could find.

'I thought if she gets another swing with that knife, that’s it. I grabbed the handle as low down as I could, where it’s not so sharp. But the blood was like oil.

'I threw it and I think it bounced behind the settee. I started kicking on the floor with my foot and screaming for help, and that’s when she walked away.

'She phoned the paramedics first and threw the phone on the floor next to me. The paramedic told me to keep talking. I don’t remember much more, but the police said they thought I was going to die.

'The whole of these walls were covered in blood. A lot of stuff had to be thrown out.'

Mr Burns and his wife met when he was manager of Flint Sports and Social Club. At the time he was married to first wife Pat, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

'Wendy came in and worked for us,' he said, 'We went about in a foursome, me and Pat and Wendy and her boyfriend.'

Pat died in 1995 after 27 years of marriage. They had three children, all now adults.

About nine months after Pat’s death, Mr Burns found Wendy sitting on her own having just fallen out with her boyfriend.

In happier times: Wendy and Derek on their wedding day. The couple met when he was the manager of Flint Sports and Social Club and got together after the death of his first wife Pat from cancer



He asked her if she wanted to go for a drink, 'and we gradually started seeing each other more and more', he said.

They were married in 1996 at Chester Register Office.

' Everything was fine. It was only after a few years, if she started drinking vodka she would start an argument.'

The arguments could turn violent he said.

'My daughter saw her hit me in the face with a laptop. She was down from Prestatyn with my granddaughter, and they had just said goodnight.

'Then for whatever reason Wendy picked up the laptop and swooshed it into my face. But my daughter had forgotten her handbag and opened the door and saw it. That was a couple of years ago.

'From that day they never got on, but before that they were good friends.'

He said Mrs Burns had been arrested a few times over a period of years for attacking him.

Problems: Mr Burns said a lot of his wife's anger came from her upbringing. He said she came from a dysfunctional family and her father regularly beat her mother and she's always had problems with violence



'The only time I retaliated was when she attacked me with a knife before. I went to court for it, I did a two year probation period for anger management,' he said.

He said part of the problem was that it was hard to admit that he was being attacked by his wife.

'It’s not something men like to talk about, being beaten up by their wives. It should be talked about more,' he said.

'It was only when she had been drinking. She was alright any other time, she was a good, hard working woman. She only drank at the weekends.'

He said he had finally sold the bungalow they shared and given half of the money to her solicitor, even though the house was his.

Asked where the anger came from, he said: 'A lot of it was her upbringing. She came from a very dysfunctional family. Her father regularly beat her mother and Wendy was in the middle of it all the time.

'She’s had problems all her life with violence. One of the first things she told me was ‘no man will ever beat me’, because of what she had seen with her father.'

He said he felt very sorry for her and that she needed help.

'I’ve written to her four times, telling her I forgive her, but have never received a reply,' he said.

Mr Burns, originally from the Scottish Highlands, said his family had all been very supportive.

'Things are getting better, but finding out about her sentence knocked me back,' he said.

'It’s like a bereavement, she was here one day and gone the next. I still wake up thinking she’s there and then you remember, ‘oh no’.