A drunken argument following the Dufftown Highland Games led to a wife threatening to kill her husband with a knife.
Ashley Ann Murray also known as Maver and her husband Colin attended the traditional sporting event on Saturday July 28 and after drinking together while there, the pair were separated and Maver made her way home by herself.
She was found asleep in the hallway of her house in Drummuir, Keith, by her husband who shouted at her calling her “a mess” and that she had “drunk too much.”
Maver reacted angrily to this and attacked Mr Maver, dragging him by the hair and punching and kicking him.
Procurator Fiscal Alex Swain told Elgin Sheriff Court that things soon escalated from there, when Maver threatened to stab her husband.
She said: “Mr Maver curled into a ball to protect himself, while the accused shouted and swore at him and threatened to stab him.
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“He then heard her go downstairs and hid in the bathroom. He could hear her rustle in the drawers in the kitchen and braced himself against the bathroom door.
“She banged repeatedly on the door saying that she was going to kill him.”
When police attended the scene, Maver was found in the hallway with a knife and officers discovered 20 stab marks in the door and around the bathroom door lock.
Maver, of Mulben in Keith, confirmed to police that she broke the lock trying to open the door.
During a police interview, Maver told police that her husband had come home and kicked off and that she had presumed that he was messaging someone else on his phone.
She also revealed that she might have been assaulted by him and was deeply sorry for causing bother and was hurt and devastated by the whole situation.
Maver represented herself at court and said that she “was deeply ashamed over what had happened and was going to hopefully try and reconcile the situation.”
She pleaded guilty to one charge of assault and one charge of behaving in a threatening and abusive manner.
Sheriff Olga Pasportnikov handed down a three months deferred sentence on the basis that Maver behaved until then.
