Christine Rawle: The 'nice and nasty' wife who murdered husband

The slow death of Ian Rawle in the yard of his home was preceded by the gradual disintegration of his marriage to wife Christine. The 30-year relationship ended when she stuck a knife into his back and watched him die without offering any help.

Before that fatal moment their relationship had just been dysfunctional and increasingly bitter. Now it was deadly.

By the time he died they were living separate lives. Ian had always been the outdoor type, rarely displaying his emotions, save for explosions of anger against his wife’s “laziness” and occasional rudeness to neighbours.

Christine loved to spend time with her horses. She liked to be known as a horse whisperer and hypnotherapist. But there was a violent side too. In 1996 police quizzed her about stabbing Ian in the arm during a domestic flare-up.

The murder trial also heard that in the early days of their romance she assaulted Ian’s ex-wife in the street, dragging her by the hair. She regularly insulted him in front of others, referring to him by the nickname Dick, but more commonly Dickhead.

On one occasion she used a hose pipe to fill his car with water. On another she confided in a family member that she hated her husband so much she would put Viagra in his tea, chilli in his underpants and wipe her bottom with his ties.

It was apt that on the first day of the murder trial the prosecuting counsel Sean Brunton KC compared the pair to the eponymous characters in the Roald Dahl story “The Twits”. A couple locked in a cycle of petty arguments, fall-outs and making ups, spiralling towards a murderous climax.

Unravelling what happened between the pair at Kittywell Wood in the years leading up to Ian's death was a major focus of the trial. The jury was played video footage of the pair arguing, setting each other off, touching nerves and grievances that had grown and festered over time. It was not always easy to watch a married couple's private life laid bare.

In a nutshell, the relationship was complex, unhappy and often ugly. Neither seemed to know how to escape its grip.

The crux of the case against Christine Rawle was whether she really was the abused wife she claimed to be or if she used the knife in a flash of anger to kill a man she just didn’t like any more.

"To lash out and stab your husband because you were having an argument and didn't like them is murder," said the prosecutor.

Ian Rawle was stabbed by Christine at about 2:17pm on August 21, 2022.

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Christine had been sleeping for some weeks in an old stable converted into AirB&B-style accommodation at their 20-acre smallholding in the village of Knowle. It happened as Ian was pushing a wheelbarrow of horse manure near the muck heap.

Earlier that morning Christine had woken at the top barn and exchanged a series of messages with a friend and her adult daughter, Chiez Bufton. The messages reveal her state of mind in the lead up to the killing.

Christine complained about her deteriorating health, the “doom and gloom” of her ailments, time passing her by with no improvement in her life. She blamed her husband for some of her problems adding in one message: "I hope the c*** dies."

The pair had been married for nearly 30 years. Ian, had worked for the council, owned a local garage and been a keen motor racing driver in his younger days. He had been married twice before and met Christine when her first husband bought a car from him.

She was later to claim that he had stalked her, deliberately causing problems with her vehicle in an aggressive but flattering pursuit of her affections. She had three children from her first marriage and moved into Kittywell. Much of their shared activity revolved around the house, Ian out in his digger fixing problems, Christine converting the stables, complaining he was not doing enough to stop the decay of the property.

The final argument between the pair was about her determination to sell a piece of land to fund a cataract operation and Ian’s angry refusal. Ian told her to pick up a knife used to prepare food for the horses and cut a tie to the gate. She was talking to Chiez on the phone, while arguing with Ian, when she stabbed him.

What caused Christine Rawle to lose her temper with deadly consequences was a topic of the trial. Medical experts for the prosecution and defence agreed that she was suffering from some mental conditions but disagreed about the extent to which they caused her to kill.

There was a reference to lockdown - Christine Rawle's fears of some kind of breakdown in society mixed with a desire to sell the house. She had suffered with serious bouts of depression in the past.

A forensic psychologist carried out a series of tests on Rawle. She scored highly on a scale of “self-deception”. It was concluded she had a major depressive disorder, anxiety and post-traumatic stress.

Rawle had a "lack of insight" into her own flaws typical of someone with a tendency to "present themselves in a positive light but also have a lack of insight into their own difficulties and flaws."

What had been intense feelings for Ian Rawle at the beginning of the relationship had transformed into disappointment and loathing when he failed to meet her expectations. It contributed to a volatile relationship.

One of her own messages to her son revealed a rare insight into her personality. She said: "It seems like every man I've ever met is so wishy-washy. "How come I never met anyone with any f*****g balls, with any integrity?"

She said: “I have made a lot of people, particularly men’s lives, hell because I made them feel inadequate because I approached them like a man would but looked like a woman. It was very confusing for them and the saner ones f****d off.”

She admitted to being “ruthless” and even if she met a “manly” companion would challenge him. She gave him an account of her difficult childhood that shaped her personality. It was forces in her childhood that seem to have shaped the woman she became and her views about the 'weakness' of men.

“I’m not vulnerable or girly,” she confessed. Her grandparents played the predominant role in her upbringing but she she hated her grandfather’s “weakness” and when he asked her to hold his hand before he died she replied “You’ve got to be f****g joking”.

Christine Rawle said she couldn't remember the moment she stabbed her husband, just that he had been "Going on at me." The jury was asked to consider whether Ian had made a remark that tipped his wife, after years of abuse, over the edge. It may have been a suggestion that even her children did not believe her anymore.

The one person who could answer the question was already dead. Ian Rawle did appear at the trial in the form of video evidence. Even the prosecution had to accept he could be grumpy and would dismiss his wife's worries. When arguments flared he would call her fat and lazy. Footage seen the jury did not paint him in a good light. He could be heard complaining loudly about having to work in order to support his wife.

Christine Rawle's youngest son backed up his mum's story that he could be an abusive and angry man and that he had seen him hit his mum in the face with a riding crop.

But Ian's ex-wives said he was never violent to them. Some of the hundreds of text messages between Christine and Ian even showed they could still be affectionate, jokey and even bawdy with one other.

Either way, Ian Rawle could not defend himself against accusations of being a domestic monster. The jury decided that, unlike the many genuine victims of abuse, Christine Rawle has manipulated and embellished the truth to avoid responsibility for murder.