The mother of a man who was murdered in the early hours of New Year’s Day by her partner has been jailed for eight months for wounding.

Sentencing Svetlana Kandate, who will soon be free, a judge said: “This is a highly unusual case with a considerable background.”

The 41-year-old Latvian mother stabbed Oleg Zavaliy at a house in Sutton Road, Maidstone, on January 1 last year - exactly a year before her son Dimitris Titovs was killed by Juris Popovs at a flat in Teynham, near Sittingbourne.

Kandate, now of no fixed address, admitted unlawful wounding.

Maidstone Crown Court heard there was heavy drinking at a party and an argument broke out between Kandate’s son and Popovs.

Kandate had been asleep and when she awoke she saw her son was injured and being held by Mr Zavaliy.

She then armed herself with a carving knife from the kitchen and stabbed the victim in the upper part of his left thigh.

Prosecutor Richard Cherrill said Mr Zavaliy went into the garden where Kandate struck him on the head with a kettle.

“There is a curiosity in that this attack was not reported for a year,” he said. “The reason is the victim was threatened by the defendant’s son there would be dire consequences for him and his wife were he to go to the police.

“He didn’t. The injury was treated by his wife. He couldn’t walk properly for about 10 days after and he was off work.”

Mr Zavaliy, who has since been deported and works as a lorry driver in Latvia, had made a full recovery.

Kandate had been jailed in Latvia in April 2007 for three years for grievous bodily harm. She was paroled in November 2009.

Danny Moore, defending, said Kandate was extremely close to her son. Mr Zavaliy was much bigger than her and her son.

Judge Philip Statman said: “Your client when she is drunk, diminutive though she is, has a capacity for behaving in a violent way. I appreciate she had this deep-seated loyalty to her son.

"She wants to go home. She has her son’s ashes and wishes to bury him” - Danny Moore, defending Kandate

“The background is strikingly similar. Every time he was in trouble, she would go to his aid.”

Mr Moore said Kandate was not charged for 18 months. She was accused by Popovs at his trial of killing her own son.

“Not only was she a witness to the murder of her son and had to jump out of a window to avoid her own murder, she then had to come to court and be accused of killing her son,” said Mr Moore.

“Justice was done in relation to that event. It marked this case out as extraordinary. She deserves enormous credit. She wants to go home. She has her son’s ashes and wishes to bury him.”

Popovs will be sentenced to life imprisonment on Tuesday.