11 years for attempted murder nurse

2:51pm Wednesday 24th October 2007

A Pembroke Dock man who set out to murder his former partner has today been jailed for 11 years.

Marion Powell, 52, only just survived the "determined, planned, vicious" murder attempt by Kelvin John Bull-De'ath.

She suffered stab wounds to her chest, arms, leg, head and jaw and has permanently lost her sense of smell and taste.

The attack was so ferocious the first knife broke, and Bull-De'ath, 50, asked his victim where he could find a sharper one.

Bull-De'ath admitted attempted murder. The judge, Mr Justice Roderick Evans, refused to allow him the usual discount for a guilty plea on the grounds he had no choice, partly because he had left behind a note explaining what he was about to do.

Kevin Jones, prosecuting, told Swansea crown court that Ms Powell had been in a two year relationship with Bull-De'ath, who lived with her in Charles Thomas Avenue.

She later described the relationship as "mental torture" and told police how on July 14 she asked him to leave.

Bull-De'ath, a nurse at Withybush hospital, did as he was asked, but immediately began planning her death.

Three days later he armed himself with a blow torch, hammer and chisel and at 3am headed for her home, having first written a letter to his family.

Bull-De'ath spent a full hour breaking in, eventually using the blow torch to melt a section of double glazing until a window panel fell out.

Ms Powell told police she had gone to bed early, and was sleeping peacefully having got rid of Bull-De'ath.

In the early hours she woke to find him sitting on her bed holding a knife and shining a torch into her eyes. He told her, "I have come to kill you. I can't live with you and I will certainly not live without you. So this is the end. You are dead."

Bull De'ath then stabbed her so many times the knife broke. At one stage she could feel the blade touch her bones and could hear blood "burbling" out.

After the knife fell apart he took Miss Powell downstairs and continued the attack using two knifes from the kitchen.

Then he began stabbing himself in the stomach and even asked Ms Powell to help him.

The ordeal took a bizarre twist when Bull-De'ath suddenly began complaining that the knives were blunt and he asked Ms Powell where he could find something sharper.

She told him where and while he was looking she made a telephone call to her sister in law Ann Powell.

Unknown to Bull-De'ath they had agreed on a code. If no words were spoken then Mrs Powell was to rush round to Charles Thomas Avenue, which she did with her husband David, a police community support officer.

As they arrived Bull-De'ath escaped from the back of the house. He was tracked and found by a police dog. By then, said Mr Justice Evans, he had made a second "ineffectual" attempt to harm himself.

The court heard that Ms Powell would be left with permanent scars from some of the 16 stab wounds and may need plastic surgery.

Bull-De'ath's barrister, Chris Clee, said he was genuinely remorseful for the attack.

Mr Justice Evans said Bull-De'ath had made his intentions clear, and had even told Ms Powell she "had not heard the last of him."

She had been deeply affected by the attack, he added, and could no longer live in the house or continue to work.

Bull-De'ath had declared an intention to kill himself, but when the time came he made only ineffectual attempts at self harm.

"This was a very grave offence," he added.