Yoga teacher accused of murdering her lodger says she stabbed him because he was trying to kill her

A yoga teacher on trial for murdering her lodger told a jury she stabbed him and kicked him down the stairs to stop him killing her. 

Dawn Lewis, 53, who knifed Glenn Richards, 61, to death at her home in Glastonbury on April 18, told the jury at Bristol Crown Court he had been trying to kill her. 

Mr Richards had moved in as Lewis’s lodger in August 2021 but they would often argue and he would complain about her noise.  

Lewis told the jury that Mr Richards had become increasingly obsessed with her, alarming her, which is why she had begun to carry a knife. 

‘I was terrified he was going to jump out and stab me.’

Artist sketch of Dawn Lewis, 53, who is seen on bodycam footage being restrained on floor after stabbing ex-policeman Glenn Richards, 61. Lewis and Mr Richards had been living together in Glastonbury since August 2021 and Lewis denies murder and claims she stabbed hi in self-defence

Dawn Lewis, 53, seen on bodycam footage being restrained on floor by police at the house after the incident in April

The pair had a confrontation on the day of the stabbing and Lewis claims Mr Richards had ‘lunged’ at her with a knife when she said she’d call the police. 

She said: ‘He lunged at me and I saw he had a knife. I grabbed his arm. Then I bit him, he dropped the knife.

‘He was going to kill me,’ Lewis said. 

‘I picked up the knife. I think at the time I thought I’d stabbed him in the stomach, but he was still holding on to me.

‘I know I stabbed him, it was me, nobody else, I have to own that.’

Lewis told the jury Mr Richards had then tried to stab her again before she kicked him with her foot and he fell down the stairs. 

She told the court that she wanted him to break a leg or be unconscious.

‘He was sitting at the bottom of the stairs looking up with a knife still in his hand. He was conscious and had the knife in his hand. He then slouched and the knife dropped. He cried out “help me”.

‘He grabbed my ankle and I fell on my knees. He went for the knife but didn’t get it. So I grabbed it and stabbed him,’ Lewis continued.

The footage showed Lewis, 53, saying: ‘Check my friend. I’m wounded but I’m not **** dead’. The jury at Bristol Crown Court were pleayed

Lewis’s 999 phone call was played to the jury. When asked to say exactly what had happened by the call handler, she responds: ‘Right, I don’t know really what happened. He’s a lodger, I wanted to get him out. He said no.

‘I went to the door, he stabbed me in the leg, I took the knife off him, I stabbed him.

‘He fell down the stairs – I stabbed him again, as he was trying to take the knife of me. and I called you.’

Mr Richards, the court heard previously, had suffered five large stab wounds, two of which were fatal. 

Lewis had three shallow cuts on her thigh. 

A doctor said the defendant’s injuries ‘did not appear to fit the description of the attack’, and appeared ‘self-inflicted’. 

Prosecutor Eloise Marshall told the jury they must decide if she acted in self-defence as per her emergency call, ‘or whether her account was a lie to cover a planned attack and set the scene to pretend she’d been acting in self-defence?’ 

Video grab from the shocking bodycam footage showing the moment a female murder suspect was arrested for stabbing her ‘friend’ and lodger

Mr Richards had moved to Glastonbury, Somerset, after being released from prison in 2011 and moved in with Lewis in August 2021. 

The former Metropolitan Police sergeant pleaded guilty to killing his estranged wife, Karen Richards, and was convicted of manslaughter in 2002 due to diminished responsibility. 

Lewis denies murder and claims that she was acting in self-defence during the incident. 

The trial continues.