Wife guilty of anti-freeze poisoning

A housewife who left her husband blind and deaf by poisoning him with anti-freeze was found guilty of attempted murder today.

Kate Knight, 28, also caused Lee Knight brain damage and kidney failure in April 2005 when she laced his food with ethylene glycol on their seventh wedding anniversary.

A jury at Stafford Crown Court took eight hours to convict Knight, of Meir Hay, Stoke-on-Trent, following a three-week trial which heard that she stood to gain £130,000 from Lee's death.

Mrs Knight hoped to pay off mounting debts by netting £250,000 from her husband's death, but he managed to survive despite spending 16 weeks in a coma after being admitted to hospital in April 2005.

The former brewery worker, who forged her partner's signature to take out two secret loans for £17,000, gasped as the verdict was announced.

Judge Simon Tonking remanded Knight in custody for sentencing on a date to be set following pre-sentence reports.

He told Knight: "I will be imposing a very considerable term of imprisonment."

Mr Knight, whose job at the JCB plant in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, meant his wife would have received a death benefit of around £130,000, recently underwent an operation to restore some of his hearing.

But, now aged 37, he still required two hearing aids and support from two specialists to give evidence at his wife's trial.

He told the court that he knew nothing of the loans, taken out in 2003 and 2004, which motivated his wife's desire to kill him and claim a windfall from his employer.

The jury which convicted Knight was also told that she used the internet search engine Google to find a method of killing, settling on anti-freeze after considering using ecstasy or iron tablets.