Man stabbed ex-partner repeatedly in chest after ambushing her on dog walk, court told

A man has gone on trial accused of trying to stab his ex-partner to death as she walked her dog in a park. James McKenna is accused of attempting to murder of Joanne Sidaway in an ambush in Carmarthen Park on January 29 this year. The defendant denies the allegation but has admitted wounding with intent and possessing a bladed article in a public place.

The 57-year-old is on trial at Swansea Crown Court.

Opening the case for the prosecution, barrister James Wilson told the jury that on the morning of January 29 the defendant packed a kitchen knife in his rucksack and walked from his home in Carmarthen to Carmarthen Park, an area where his former-partner Miss Sidaway regularly walked her dog.

He said the pair were caught on CCTV walking separately in the park that morning but the defendant did not approach Miss Sidaway at that point – possibly, he said, because there were other the people in the park at the time. For the latest court stories sign up to our crime newsletter

The barrister said McKenna took a taxi into Carmarthen town centre where he was seen on CCTV at various locations before returning to the park in the afternoon. He said Miss Sidaway also returned to the park to walk her dog again.

The barrister told the court that at just after 4pm a neighbour of Miss Sidaway who was in the park heard “very high-pitched screams” and saw movements and shaking in bushes near the Picton Terrace entrance – he said the woman then saw a man running away, and saw her friend bleeding from wound to her hands. He said Miss Sidaway told her friend that her former partner McKenna had stabbed her. The neighbour took the injured woman home and tended to her wounds while the emergency services were called.

The court heard the victim suffered four penetrating wounds to her chest, penetrating wounds to her upper arm, and “defensive” type wounds to her hands.

Mr Wilson told the court that it was the prosecution case that McKenna stabbed his victim multiple times in the chest with the kitchen knife, and that when he did so he intended to kill her.

The court heard police subsequently recovered a blood-stained knife from allotments near the park, and heard that the defendant was arrested on February 2 after attending the A&E department at Aberystwyth hospital with frostbite to his feet.

The defendant gave officers a prepared statement in which he accepted having a knife and accepted being responsible for the injuries to Miss Sidaway but in which he denied trying to kill her.

The prosection barrister said: “He [the defendant] accepts he had the knife. He accepts he unlawfully attacked Miss Sidaway. He accepts he intended to cause really serious harm. The prosecution does not accept his intent was limited to causing really serious harm. It is the prosecution case that he intended to kill her. Therefore, the issue in the trial will be his intent at the time of the attack.”

James John McKenna, of Bro Hedydd, Carmarthen, denies attempted murder and the trial – which is expected to last seven days – continues.

You can follow live updates from the first day of McKenna’s trial below. Don’t miss a court report by signing up to our crime newsletter here