Daryl Berman is accused of stabbing David Berman to death
The trial of a ‘loving’ wife accused of murdering her 84-year-old husband collapsed after jurors were unable to agree on a verdict.
Daryl Berman, 71, was accused of deliberately stabbing David Berman to death at their home in Prestwich. She pleaded not guilty to the charge. Prosecutors claimed she knifed him in the chest ‘for a reason known only to her’.
But Mrs Berman denied being responsible and described it as the ‘most horrendous accident’. She said her husband must have fallen and landed on a ‘vegetable knife’, as he brought her dinner tray into the kitchen.
A jury of five men and five women at Minshull Street Crown Court were deadlocked following more than seven hours of deliberations after an eight day trial. Two jurors had been discharged earlier in the case due to illness. Judge Tina Landale discharged the jury and granted prosecutors time to decide whether they will seek a re-trial.
Jurors at the trial heard that Mr Berman’s death was originally treated as an accident by police. Mrs Berman called 999, at 1.55pm on March 13, to report that her husband was injured. He was pronounced dead at their home at 2.39pm.
Mr Brady said it was only later that a senior pathologist was called in, after another doctor had been ‘troubled’ by the injury.
Mr Brady said Home Office pathologist Dr Philip Lumb reported that the stab wound had ‘typical features of a homicide’. He claimed that though it was not impossible, an accidental fall was ‘very unlikely to have caused the fatal wound’.
Mr Berman was also found to have a wound to his finger, which prosecutors claimed could have been caused while trying to defend himself. Jurors heard the couple’s 27 year marriage had been ‘loving and mutually supportive’, and that there had been no record of domestic violence or involvement with police. Mrs Berman was described as a ‘very supportive and loving wife’.
Prosecutors said Mr Berman’s family noticed aspects of Mrs Berman’s behaviour in the days following his death. “Although there is no set way to respond to and deal with grief in the days following David’s death, members of his family noticed how matter of fact and emotionless the defendant was,” prosecutor Michael Brady KC said.
When she gave evidence in court for the first time in her defence, Mrs Berman was asked whether she had been involved in her husband’s death ‘in any way’, She replied: “Absolutely not.”
“Did you murder your husband?,” her barrister Michael Hayton KC asked her. “I did not,” said Mrs Berman, who wore a black cardigan and thick black rimmed glasses in the witness box.
She broke down at times as she was questioned about the events of March 13 this year. Mrs Berman said that she had met her husband, a self-employed joiner, after the pair went on a blind date.
Mrs Berman, who had previously worked in the fashion industry and as a dental nurse, said her husband had only retired recently before he died. “He was just not coping that well,” she said. “His hands were shaking a bit. His balance was not that good.” The couple had also travelled ‘fairly extensively’.
She said of their marriage: “I loved him. I just wanted to look after him and care for him.” Mrs Berman said that on March 13, she had travelled to Manchester city centre to do some shopping, and that her husband had attended a soft play centre with his daughter and great-granddaughter.
He had returned home before her, and was sitting in a lounge watching TV. Mrs Berman said she had left some lunch for him, some soup which he could microwave. She told jurors that she prepared a chicken salad sandwich, which she brought into the lounge and ate while resting it on a tray.
She said she brought a knife with her, to cut the sandwich. Mrs Berman told jurors that her husband offered to take her tray into the kitchen after she had finished.
She told jurors that she then heard a ‘noise like a fall or a stumble’. “It was like a stumble or a slip,” she said.
Mrs Berman said she asked ‘David what’s wrong?’ “Then I heard another noise,” she said. “It was like a groan. I jumped up and screamed and ran in. I probably said something loudly.
“I saw David lying face down.” Mrs Berman said he wasn’t moving, and that he was ‘gurgling’. She said there was blood everywhere.
“I think I froze,” she told the jury. “I was in shock. I was kneeling down saying ‘David, David’. I was beside myself.”
Mrs Berman said she called 999, and the operator advised her to turn her husband over. She said it was ‘very, very difficult’ as he was a ‘big man’.
She said that after paramedics began to arrive, she was told to leave the room. Mrs Berman said she then began to call family members to ‘tell them that the most horrendous accident’ had happened, and ‘just to get here’.
Asked for her reaction after being told her husband had died, Mrs Berman said: “I was absolutely numb. I think I possibly knew that he had not survived, but to actually hear it. I just collapsed inwardly.”
Mrs Berman said that her husband’s body was left in their home, after police had originally treated the death as accidental. She said that police had informed her that an undertaker would arrive, but that they took ‘ages’.
Mrs Berman told the jury that she largely remained in the lounge with family members, but ‘at least four times’ went to lie with her late husband. She said she didn’t tell anyone else what she was doing.
“I lay down next to David,” she said, breaking down.” I kissed him and I stroked his arm. I did it quite a few times.”
Mrs Berman said that later that day, when everyone had left, she wrote ‘bye bye’ on the March 13 entry for her calendar. She told jurors of the message: “It has got ‘bye bye’ and it has got two kisses, and it has got a heart. I put it on at the end of the day when everybody had gone and I was ready to go up to bed.”
Mrs Berman said that on the same calendar she had written a message which read ‘Mummy, 30 years’ on the anniversary of her mother’s death, and a similar message on the anniversary of her father’s death.
She denied having any kind of argument with her husband that day, and denied having the knife in her hand. “Was your marriage a volatile one?,” Mr Hayton asked her.
“It was an ordinary, loving marriage,” she said. “We got on. We might have bickered occasionally, which I think is normal. We did most things together.”
“Did you kill him?,” Mr Hayton asked. “No, I did not,” Mrs Berman replied.
A further mention hearing in the case is yet to be scheduled.
