A mum-of-two on trial for murdering her former brother-in-law appeared to laugh and react “in celebration” as he lay dying in the road, a court heard.

Stephanie Langley, who is accused of fatally stabbing Matthew Bryant in an “irrational but deliberate” attack, was captured on CCTV raising her fists in the air as the pub landlord went “limp and lifeless” in the street outside the Hare and Hounds in Maidstone on September 11 last year.

She was also heard to repeatedly shout out to those trying to save him that she hoped she had killed him and she wanted him to die.

But during cross-examination by prosecutor Nina Ellin KC, 55-year-old Langley denied she had intended to cause the publican’s death or that she was “pleased” she had done so.

“It’s awful, I wasn’t in my right mind...I was beside myself, I was hysterical. I wasn’t in my right frame of mind,” she told Maidstone Crown Court.

“This is not me, this is not how I behave. It’s horrible.”

Langley, of Wilsons Lane, East Farleigh, has admitted possessing a knife but denies both murder and the alternative offence of manslaughter.

Jurors have heard during her trial that she stabbed Mr Bryant twice in the back and once to his chest just seconds after he dialled 999 to report her for threatening to kill him.

He was on the line to police outside the Hare and Hounds in Lower Boxley Road just after 6pm when Langley appeared in front of him and, having knocked the phone from his hand, knifed him as he bent down to pick it up.

The chest wound proved fatal “within seconds” after it penetrated to a depth of 20cm, through the married 52-year-old’s heart and into his liver.

Giving evidence to the court on Friday, Langley claimed she had taken the knife from her car “to warn” Mr Bryant after he had threatened to harm her teenage daughter.

Jurors previously heard she had told her son in March or May that year that the landlord was violent and, she claimed, had once raped someone she knew.

But when grilled by Ms Ellin yesterday (April 22), Langley denied the fatal stabbing was “a vengeful act.”

Accepting the CCTV footage “looked like” she had attacked him, she told the jury: “I don’t really have any recollection of it.

“It’s an awful act, it’s not deliberate. It’s an awful, heinous act. I just lost control.

“I remember jabbing out but I don’t remember all my actions.”

Langley also described the fatal wound and its consequences as “horrific” and “mortifying” as Ms Ellin accused her of having intended to kill her victim that evening.

“You wanted to kill him, you hated him,” the prosecutor told her, to which she replied: “I wanted to keep my daughter safe.”

But when asked what actual words she had used to warn Mr Bryant, Langley responded: “I warned him with the knife.”

“By stabbing him?”, asked Ms Ellin. “I had stabbed him, yes,” said Langley.

Her claim that in the minutes leading up to his death he had made any threat to “find her daughter” is refuted by the prosecution, the court heard.

Mr Bryant had been “nothing but calm, courteous and polite” to his former sister-in-law, it is said, with footage captured inside the pub showing him sitting at a table chatting to her.

At one point, the same camera filmed Langley repeatedly smashing his mobile phone on a table corner while he was busy serving a customer.

Asked by Ms Ellin whether she “hated” Mr Bryant, Langley replied: “He wasn’t on my Christmas card list, no. He wasn’t somebody I wanted to think about.”

The question was then repeated, to which Langley responded: “I didn’t like him, no.”

During the trial, the court has heard that her son Cameron Langley-McColm and his girlfriend Shannon Cooney had been regular pool team players at the Hare and Hounds.

But they were unaware of the family link to the landlord until just a few months before his alleged murder.

In messages sent to her son on the day itself, she twice referred to Mr Bryant as a ”w*****.”

The former dental nurse and carer agreed with the prosecutor that she was upset when her son had told her he would be at the pub that evening.

Asked how such contact with Mr Bryant impacted her, Langley told the jury: “I tried to push it to one side because Cam and Shan both said they liked playing pool.

“But I didn’t like having him (Mr Bryant) back in my life at all and didn’t want him around Cam’s life as well.”

When asked about referring to her ex brother-in-law by the insulting term, she added: “I guess that’s how I really viewed him.”

The court heard Langley was under a number of personal and financial strains at the time.

But she denied she had decided to “take it all out” on Mr Bryant and was “in a rage” when she went to the pub.

She also maintained that another message she sent to her son just an hour before the alleged murder in which she said “I will also kill him” was not a threat but a “reactionary” comment.

Asked why she decided to visit the Hare and Hounds, Langley told the court it was to speak to her son to “make it clear” she did not want him going to the pub or Mr Bryant in “her life” anymore.

She denied however that she had already armed herself with the knife when she first entered, or was “plucking up the courage” to stab the landlord when his wife Caroline appeared, ordered her to leave and her husband to call police.

Langley admitted she had told Mr Bryant she would kill him “if he went anywhere near” her daughter, saying she had believed his own remark to be “a very credible” threat.

She said, however, she could not recall saying “You’re dead tonight” or telling a customer “Get a drink now while he’s still alive.”

After leaving the pub, Langley walked to her car parked nearby and drove it to Station Road. She then headed back on foot, with the kitchen knife in her gilet pocket.

“My plan was not to kill him but to warn him not to touch my daughter,” she told the jury. “I am mortified at what happened, mortified how I behaved.”

Langley added that when she swiped the phone from his hand she was “defending herself.”

When asked why she had pulled the knife out of Mr Bryant’s torso despite two shouts from a witness not to do so, she replied: “I’m not in the moment at all at that time.

“I didn’t hear any of those words. It was just commotion around me.”

But, having described the CCTV footage of her “victory” fist motion as being out of character, Langley was accused by Ms Ellin of making the gesture because she had “wanted him dead and had succeeded.”

Jurors have also seen footage of Langley at the scene filmed by police bodyworn camera.

In it she can be heard screaming and shouting, referring to him being a rapist and making comments including “He deserved it”, “I want him dead”, “I’m happy he’s gone. I hate him” and “I hope he f****** dies. I will take my life consequences for this man.”

Ms Ellin told Langley: “This was your revenge for what you thought he had done.”

But she refuted it was revenge, before adding: “I did kill him, yes. I did take a knife. I didn’t take a knife to kill him deliberately.

“Everyone thought Matthew was so nice…..I knew him to be very violent. I saw him as a threat but what I did was wholly wrong.”

The trial continues.