Woman stabs boyfriend to death after catching him in bed with another man

An adulteress who stabbed her boyfriend through the heart after he caught her in bed with another man has been jailed.

Natasha Elderfield was today sentenced to nine years in prison for the manslaughter of boyfriend Robert Dobinson, known to most as Raggy.

She stabbed him after he came across her and her love on a houseboat on the River Thames.

There were cries of joy from the victim's family in the packed public gallery as Elderfield was handed her sentence.

The 41-year-old remained expressionless throughout as she was once again reminded of the details of the drunken attack on her now deceased boyfriend.

Judge Patrick Eccles said: "The first and most important thing to recognise is that as a result of your actions a well loved son, brother and uncle was deprived of his life.

"The victim personal statements that I have read pay vivid testimony to Raggy's good nature and to the aching sense of loss felt by his family.

"While you are clearly devastated to have lost your friend, you have expressed no personal remorse for your actions."

Elderfield was in a drunken rage when she chased her boyfriend up the steps from the lower deck of her boat and stabbed him in the chest with a serated kitchen knife.

The blade penetrated his heart and caused a catastrophic loss of blood.

Witnesses heard Raggy's bloodcurdling cries for help from near the boat which was moored on the River Thames at Abingdon, Oxon in November last year.

Judge Eccles heard that the couple had been caught up in a heated argument after Raggy found Elderfield with another man, Tony Steggles, with whom he assumed she was about to have sex.

Andrew Hall, defending, told the judge at Oxford Crown Court that Elderfield did not intend to kill or even hurt her boyfriend as the dispute turned violent.

He said: "She feels genuine and utter remorse about what has happened and the loss of the man she loved and intended to spend the rest of her life with."

However, behind loose fitting cardigan and bored gaze, blonde-haired Elderfield seemed unmoved by the sentence handed to her.

Elderfield was convicted by unanimous jury verdict of the manslaughter of her boyfriend.

She was sentenced to nine years in prison, with time spent in remand counting towards the sentence.