Woman accused of murdering boyfriend by stabbing him in heart

A woman has gone on trial accused of murdering her boyfriend, who died from a stab wound to the heart.

Dionne Christie, 23, is accused of stabbing Jevin Haig, 21, with a knife in Falkirk.

Scottish Ambulance Service personnel were called to Christie’s home on Wright Street, near Graham’s Road, at 3.12 pm on the day of the alleged murder, June 26, 2022, and found Mr Haig, the High Court in Stirling was told.

Ambulance staff carried out extensive procedures in an effort to revive him, and an emergency doctor also attended and administered treatment, but Mr Haig was pronounced dead 45 minutes later.

A post-mortem gave the cause of death as “stab wound to the heart”.

The Crown’s first witness, Mr Haig’s mother, Karen May Mearns, 41, said Jevin, from Edinburgh, had been in a relationship with Christie at the time of his death.

Ms Mearns said once their relationship had started, he had begun asking her for money.

She said: “It started off with small amounts, £30 then £50, then £300 and then he’d come back the same day and want another £200.

“He was asking for money every day.”

Ms Mearns said Jevin never said what the money was for, but asked her to transfer it to Dionne Christie’s account.

She said her son had returned home with his nose bruised and his eyes yellow and told her Christie had punched him in the nose.

No longer than two months before his death, he showed her a cut in his trousers and a slit mark above his knee. He was limping and said Christie had stabbed him in the leg. She said he told her Christie had also ripped a Canada Goose jacket of him, top to bottom, with a knife.

She said that after the bruised nose incident, she had asked him “what he was thinking about, what he was doing”.

She said: “I told him to leave the relationship.”

Christie, of Polmont, Stirlingshire, denies murdering Mr Haig by stabbing him on the body with a knife, having previously evinced malice or ill-will towards him.

She also denies assaulting him on various occasions at the Wright Street address between January 1, 2022 and June 25 – the day before his death.

She denies uttering threats of violence towards him, pushing him, attempting to strike him with a knife, repeatedly stabbing him with a knife, punching him on the head, scratching him, biting his hand, and striking him on the body with a pole.

Christie, who is represented by Ian Duguid KC, further denies assaulting a previous partner to his injury, on various occasions between March 2020 and March 2021, by punching him on the head and body, presenting a knife at him, and threatening him with violence.

Jurors have been told that the trial before Lady Poole, which continues, is likely to last eight days,