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A Canterbury care worker wanted revenge after her husband walked out, and plotted an attack to get him sacked.
Bitter mum-of-two Gemma Court could not accept her 10-year relationship with mechanic Philip had broken down.
So she drove to the garage where he worked in Cockering Place, Thanington, last August and:
Ironically, it was Court who ended up getting the sack after her bosses watched her plead guilty and then promptly dismissed her from her care post.
However Court, of Chaucer Road, Canterbury, has kept her freedom after a judge suspended a 12-month prison sentence for two years.
She had admitted possessing two knives, common assault and damaging property when she appeared at Canterbury Crown Court.
The sacked carer has, however, been ordered to stay away from her husband and from his workplace.
Her lawyer, Oliver Kirk told Judge Nigel Van Der Bijl that she now accepts that their 10-year relationship is over.
He said a report indicated she was suffering from “significant cognitive distortion, no self-control or thinking skills”.
Trevor Wright, prosecuting, said that the couple had been married for eight years but in September last year they separated.
In April, Mr Court was at work when his wife pulled up outside Thanington Motors in a car.
Mr Wright added: “She began shouting at her husband and swearing and that went on for half-an-hour. She then left.
“But she returned at 1.40pm and was standing in the street screaming ‘I hate you’.
The court heard that she then rolled her car into a stationery vehicle, but only managed to knock her number plate off.
She then went into the boot of her vehicle, took out steak knives and threatened to stab Mr Court before throwing the knives at him, but fortunately he wasn’t hurt.
Mr Wright said Mr Court had moved up the street because he feared the row would have put his job in jeopardy.
It was then that Court took a car key and scratched her husband’s vehicle and, watched by one of her husband’s colleagues, plunged one of the knives into a tyre.
She later told police she had planned to get her husband into trouble with his boss and to get him the sack because “he had wound me up and I just reacted”.
Mr Kirk said: “She had struggled to come to terms with what she felt was her husband abandoning his responsibilities towards her and their children.
“She tried to get him to come back but the more she pushed, the more he pushed her away.”
He said Court had gone to the boot of the car to get a screwdriver but then found a box of cutlery.
“She had not gone there with the intention of using a knife,” he added.
Court was also ordered to 120 hours of unpaid work for the community and given a two-year supervision order.
Mr Court, who no longer works at Thanington Motors, said his relationship with his former wife collapsed after a decade and they stopped communicating.
Speaking to the Gazette after the case, he says the mental turmoil of the relationship breakdown outweighs the physical assault.
“It was nasty and vindictive of her,” he admitted.
“But there’s a lot of mental anguish in this and having to think about it.”
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