Chilling footage shows moment pensioner in pyjamas is arrested after stabbing her ‘abusive’ husband

Chilling footage shows the moment a pensioner was arrested while refusing to help her ‘abusive’ husband as he lay dying on the kitchen floor.

Penelope Jackson, 66, calmly talks police through what she allegedly did to David Jackson, 78, after they arrived at their home in Berrow, Somerset.

She gives horrifying remarks to the officers including ‘if there’s any luck you’ll be too late’, ‘I should have stabbed him a bit more’ and ‘I might go and stab him again’.

But during her arrest Jackson appears more concerned with retrieving her coat and slippers from her house, which she repeatedly asks officers for.

Jackson is on trial for the murder of Mr Jackson after he was stabbed three times at their £300,000 bungalow on February 13.

She is accused of killing the retired colonel with a kitchen knife after claiming she could not put up with him after 24 years of marriage. 

Elsewhere in the trial:

She said her husband was so jealous when they met she got a ‘property of David Jackson’ tattoo on her bum;She revealed her third husband killed himself after discovering she was having an affair with David Jackson;The jury earlier heard Jackson threatened to cut her husband’s penis off before stabbing him after a row;Bristol Crown Court also heard she called police officers to her home due to her husband in December 2020.

The judge today authorised the release of the 18-minute 999 call that was played to the jury alongside bodycam footage of her arrest as the prosecution case ended.

The eerie video shows officers approach the couple’s front door at 9.25pm before Jackson opens the door and steps outside.

She obeys orders to leave the house but appears desperate to return inside to grab her coat, saying: ‘Can I get my coat on? He’s on the kitchen floor.’

A policeman says: ‘At this moment in time if you could just listen to my colleague… under arrest on suspicion of attempted murder.’

But she cuts in saying: ‘Oh but it’s not attempted.’ Officers continue to handcuff the retired chartered accountant for the Ministry of Defence but she cuts across them again saying: ‘Can I get my coat?’

A policewoman says: ‘Bear with me two seconds’, to which Jackson adds: ‘It’s in there. I admit it all. No he’s on the kitchen floor.’

The same officer says :’Can someone say with… while I got in.’ Jackson says: ‘There’s nothing nasty. And I’m certainly not not… my coat’s in the… ouch. With any luck you’ll be too late.’

Asked what her name is, she says: ‘Well I’m called Penny but Penelope Jackson.’ Asked if she lived there, she said: ‘Yes. Can I get my coat?’

A policewoman cuts off their conversation and shouts: ‘Right, get the ambulance here pronto. We need CPR.’ Jackson says: ‘Oh don’t no no no please don’t. Should have stabbed him a bit more.’

The footage cuts to the defendant being spoken to by a police car away from the house. She says: ‘I stabbed him. Once because he’s an aggressive bully and nasty and I’ve had enough. And when he said you won’t do it I did it twice more.’

She continues to ramble while in the back of the police car, which one of the officers bodycam footage also picked up.

She said: ‘Coat’s in, go in the front, grey wardrobe.’ A policeman says: ‘It might be a while okay but I’ll try to get it for you. There’s obviously a lot going on okay.’ Jackson says: ‘Oh with any luck it will be too late.’

The officer replies: ‘Penelope my advice is don’t talk about it now.’ But she hits back: No no I have no intention of not agreeing to what I’ve done.

‘I know what I’ve done. And I know why I’ve done it and if I haven’t done it properly I’m really annoyed.’  The officer then closes the door on the squad car.

In other footage released today, officers are shown speaking to Jackson at the police station where she was arrested on suspicion of murder.

When she is told this, Jackson says: ‘Oh good.’ The officer continues to caution her but Jackson simply says: ‘That’s a bit tight.’ She later adds: ‘I wouldn’t mind my slippers.’

She goes on: ‘I’m very sorry for being a nuisance.’ An officer arrives to take her temperature as the coronavirus was still prominent in Britain at the time. She adds: ‘Oh that would be just really great – get Covid on top of this.’

The court also released audio of Jackson’s 999 call, where she is heard telling operators who asked his whereabouts: ‘He is in the kitchen bleeding to death with any luck.’

The defendant grabs the phone and refused to help her husband as he lay on bleeding to death on the kitchen floor.

She stated: ‘I killed my husband because I’ve had enough. I might go and stab him again. I am in the lounge, he is in the kitchen bleeding to death with any luck.’

She added: ‘He threatened me before, but he’s not threatening me now.’

She repeatedly tells the operator she does not want any help or wants to help her husband in any way to stem the bleeding.

She added: ‘I am not doing anything to help him. He deserves everything he has got – I accept everything that is coming my way. I might just go and do it again.

‘I did it the once and then he said ‘I wouldn’t do it again’ so I did it twice more. She also tells the operator she thought she had stabbed him in the heart – but added: ‘He doesn’t have one.’

The jury heard the defendant had been charged with murder, which she denies, but she had accepted manslaughter.

The court was told the couple married in April 1996 and had both been married several times before.

Mr Jackson, who was highly ranked in the Royal Logistics Corps before moving to a post at the Ministry of Defence.

Mrs Jackson was a retired chartered accountant for the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development.

Mr Quinlan said they had met through their work in the military and lived in Germany for many years before settling in Somerset.

 

Jackson also told the jury today her husband was so jealous when they first met she got ‘property of David Jackson’ tattooed on her bum.

Taking to the witness stand, Jackson also revealed her third husband had committed suicide after discovering she was having an affair with David Jackson.

She claimed Mr Jackson then became very jealous of her that would often lead to outbursts of violence. And she said she went to extreme lengths to try and ‘reassure him.’

She added: ‘He was so jealous. He was so secure in some parts, but so insecure in others that he thought I would pack my bags any minute and rush off with another person. I never gave him reason to think that.

‘I wanted to reassure him so I tattooed ‘property of David John Jackson.’ I wanted to stop the constant jealousy and unfounded ‘what are you going to do?’ All the things he was feeling, I felt it would persuade him.

‘No-one would to go out and see me with that printed on my bum. He was very pleased and thought it was a very nice Christmas present.’

Jackson also told the jury her previous husband had killed himself after she admitted an affair with Mr Jackson. She said he later obliterated all evidence of her previous marriage.

The initial ‘one night stand’ took place while her husband Alan was working away as an engineer in Saudi Arabia, the defendant said.

She told the jury: ‘I had a one night stand, which I regretted. Alan found out about the affair in early 1993 and they had a fight.

‘I begged him to leave Saudi Arabia and if he had come back we wouldn’t be here now. He was angry, distraught. I loved him.’ Jackson said she later walked into her garage and discovered Alan had killed himself.

‘I went looking for him the next morning and opened the garage door. He was bright red and I subsequently found out that was carbon monoxide poisoning.. He had taken his own life,’ she added.

‘The postman came up the drive and put the door down and I called the police.’ After her third husband’s death, Jackson said she entered into a relationship with David Jackson and they eventually married.

But she said his jealousy persisted and she told the jury about one incident when he wielded an axe on all their furniture in 1996 when she was preparing for a post in Germany.

She added: ‘The dining room was smashed to pieces. He used an axe. The sofas in the sitting room were all slashed and he chopped all the furniture up.

‘I was baffled more than anything. He said he got so angry and frightened that I would go to Germany and leave him that he had taken it out on furniture. He said something like ‘ it is better to take it out on the furniture than on me.’

Jackson said she told the outside world that the damage was caused at a teenage party out of ’embarrassment.’ Before the defendant took to the witness stand, defence solicitor Clare Wade QC, opened her case.

She told the jury: ‘This case is about domestic abuse, control and ultimately entrapment. Domestic abuse is not physical all of the time.’

Ms Wade said the 999 call played to the jury was evidence of her client ‘losing her self control because of the way she had been treated.’

She added: ‘Not just on that day but over a far, far longer period of time. This marriage lasted 24 years up until the time Mr Jackson was killed.’

She described what happened on the night of 13 February as the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back.’ She added: ‘She lost control and stabbed her husband. She did not intend to kill him or cause serious harm.’

’24 years culminated in the events of 13 February and were brought to a head on that day. As she said to call handler, it seemed like a drastic solution, but she also said ‘I’ve had enough.’

‘She lost all ability and sense of self and identity by the time she lashed out at David. She knew where she was going but said ‘my life in prison is preferable to what it was now.”

Ms Wade said the defendant had a ‘distorted sense of loyalty and need to protect others’ which was why she never revealed the extent of her abuse.

‘Just because there is no history of police call outs does not mean Penelope Jackson was not being abused.’

The trial continues.