Schoolgirl who stabbed sister to death 'just wanted to scare her'

Victim, 16: died after being stabbed in her lung

The girl, who admits manslaughter, denies murdering her 16-year-old sister at their home after a row broke out over boyfriends.

The defendant, from the Ovenden area of Halifax, West Yorkshire, told Bradford Crown Court the pair started arguing because she had borrowed a white top from her sister without asking.

But the argument escalated after the girls swapped insults about boyfriends, and the older girl grabbed the youngster by the hair.

Sobbing in the dock, the defendant, wearing a black cardigan with a white T-shirt, said: "We were arguing about clothes, then we started arguing about lads.

"I said something about her boyfriend that he wouldn't amount to anything.

"She came over and I was sat in the chair and she was trying to punch me so I was trying to kick her away.

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"She walked back over to the fireplace and I stood up after that and she just ran at me and grabbed my hair.

"Then she sat down in the chair and she was pulling it with both hands.

"She was just booting me in the head, kicking me in the head.

"My mum was trying to get her hands off me. She was saying no, not until she apologises.

"I didn't think it was fair because she said something about my boyfriend first and she wanted me to apologise."

She said she could feel her hair "coming out in clumps".

When the pair were separated she ran to the kitchen, grabbed a knife and ran back into the living room, the court heard.

She said: "She was just in the room and she was stood sideways on to me.

"I just wanted to scare her with it but I stabbed her in the side."

Philippa McAtasney, defending, asked: "Did you intend to kill her?", to which she replied "No".

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The court heard the sister picked up the knife, which had been dropped, and stabbed the defendant in the back of the leg.

"There was a proper load of blood and I didn't want to get any on my mum's carpet so I went in the bath," the defendant said.

She said she was facing her sister at the time of the attack, on March 26, and stabbed her once with a downward motion.

The blade went in beside the shoulder blade, puncturing the lung and causing severe internal bleeding.

Both girls were taken to Calderdale Royal Hospital, where they arrived shortly after 11.30pm.

But the older girl's condition deteriorated and she died about four hours later.

Asked how she felt about what happened, the defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: "I am sorry and I love her and I want her back."

Earlier, Detective Inspector John Priestly, of West Yorkshire Police, read extracts to the court from the defendant's interviews.

She told police that as she went to attack her sister "she was looking at me. She didn't move or anything. She just froze".

She said: "I was just proper angry. I could feel myself getting redder and redder. I was proper furious."

The defendant told the court she had not got on with her sister since the age of nine or 10, and the relationship started getting violent when she started senior school.

They fought over friends, clothes and chores, the court heard.

The older girl used to taunt the youngster - who was very image conscious - that she was fat, or that she would turn out like their other sister.

The 18-year-old was taken into care about five years ago after getting involved in drink, drugs and stealing, the court has heard.

On the night of the incident the defendant was out visiting friends and her sister was out visiting her boyfriend when the pair met by chance at a bus stop. The older girl told her sister to "get her top off" but the defendant ignored her.

The argument continued when the girls returned home at about 8.30pm before their mother, who is divorced, arrived at about 9.30pm.

The court has heard the older girl was devoted to her boyfriend - a student with a part-time supermarket job - and would "go mad" if anyone said anything bad about him.

Under cross-examination from Tom Bayliss QC, the defendant told the court she was jealous "because she was spending more time with him". She said he would not let her go out with other male friends.