An Oldham woman who stabbed her uncle then unknowingly confessed to the murder when her family called emergency services has been sentenced to life in prison.
Bernadette Watt, 29, of Vincent Avenue, Sholver, was jailed at Manchester Crown Court yesterday and ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years.
Shortly after 12.15am on November 19 last year, police received a phone-call from the ambulance service stating that 48-year-old Peter Watt had been stabbed at his brother’s house on Coleridge Road, Sholver.
In the background, the call handler could hear a voice shouting: “He’s dead, he’s dead. I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him, he’s dead.”
When officers arrived they found Peter on the floor with three stab wounds being cradled by his brother – Bernadette Watt was on the settee screaming and shouting.
The horrifying scene followed a family drinking session where an argument had broken out, prompting Senior Investigator Andrew Tattersall to remark that ‘there are clearly no winners in this tragic case’.
“Only Watt knows why she did what she did, and it is clear that she will have to live with that for the rest of her life,” he added.
Peter had spent the afternoon and evening drinking with people at his brother Michael’s home, along with his niece.
A few minutes before midnight an argument started between Peter Watt and the rest of the family.
He was stabbed three times, twice to the chest and once to the heart after it penetrated his left arm.
Paramedics pronounced Peter dead at the scene, and a post mortem examination established that he died from a single stab wound to the heart.
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