A school nurse who stabbed her estranged husband twice after he had their two dachshunds put down has been cleared of attempting to murder him after the jury heard she may have suffered temporary amnesia.
Claire Bridger, 64, accepted that she drove the blade into husband Keith’s chest and abdomen while screaming that he had killed ‘my dogs’ when she ‘saw red’ after he told her they had been euthanised.
The mother-of-two denied a charge of attempted murder and the jury – which heard she could have suffered the amnesia due to a combination of distress and alcohol – took just two hours and 34 minutes to clear her unanimously after a five-day trial.
However, Bridger had earlier admitted a charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to her husband, who suffered life-threatening injuries, and she was remanded back into custody.
Judge Katharine Moore said she was adjourning sentencing because she wanted the probation service to draw up a report on her potential ‘dangerousness’.
The trial heard how Bridger and her husband, who had been together for 37 years and married for 30 years, split up when Mr Bridger suddenly announced he was leaving her as they ate breakfast with their two daughters on April 27 last year.
Bridger initially kept their two rescue dogs, which they had taken on in 2020 and 2021, as she remained at the home they had shared in Taverham, Norfolk, while he had moved to a one-bedroom rented home in Bramerton around 15 miles away.
She handed them over to her car dealer husband to look after when she went to stay for a week with her sister and niece in London.
Claire Bridger, 64, is left estranged husband Keith with life-threatening injuries after lunging at him with a knife when she learned their two rescue dogs had been put down
But Bridger ended up signing herself off work and staying with her relatives for several weeks because she ‘felt in pieces and couldn’t cope’ following her marriage break-up.
During her trial, she told jurors she believed that her daughters had taken her husband’s side and revealed one of them had phoned her to urge her to come home otherwise they would have to put the ‘noisy’ and ‘quite bitey’ dogs down due to difficulties looking after them.
Giving evidence, the defendant said: ‘I thought it was nonsense. I thought that they would never put the dogs down, no matter what.
‘There was no need… I thought it was a demand to make me come home.’
Bridger eventually returned to Taverham to clear out her family house as it needed to be sold and decided to return two bags of her daughter’s possessions to them after drinking a double gin and tonic on the evening of July 17 last year.
When she found they were not around, she went to her husband’s new home in case one of them was there and found him on the driveway after returning from a motorcycle ride, she told Norwich Crown Court.
She said she at first asked him if he was willing to pay for a session of mediation which she could not afford and he agreed to do so.
Bridger added: ‘I just suddenly thought “I can’t hear the dogs” because they were yappy.
The couple’s dachshunds, which came from a rescue home, pictured with one of their daughters
‘I shouted “Where are the dogs?” and he didn’t answer me. He was taking his helmet off and I beeped my horn and shouted it again.’
After shouting a third time, she told jurors: ‘He turned round facing me in the car and he said “You know where the dogs are. The vets wrote to you”.’
‘I said I had a text from the vets and he said “You know what happened to the dogs. The dogs are dead. I had them put down”.’
Describing her reaction, Bridger added: ‘It was like an explosion in my head. I could see my feet getting out of the car and that was it…
‘I don’t know what happened to me. I would never have intentionally tried to hurt Keith, let alone try to kill him.’
The next thing she was aware of was a neighbour trying to pull her off her husband, she said.
When police arrived, the Bridger told them ‘he killed my dogs’, adding: ‘I just saw red’.
The defendant told the court the knife she used in the attack was in the car because it was slightly bent and had been in a bag of rubbish she was taking to her local tip.
Bridger, who took in the first dog with her husband in 2020 and the other in 2021, was cleared unanimously of attempted murder
She later discovered it had fallen out of the bag and down the side of the driver’s seat, so she threw it onto the front passenger seat.
Tim Hunter, defending, asked if she ‘accepted as a matter of fact’ that she was responsible for assaulting her husband with a knife and ‘intended to do him really serious harm’. She answered: ‘Yes.’
Mr Hunter also read an agreed statement to jurors saying that a medical expert who had carried out a psychiatric assessment on Bridger had stated that ‘a combination of alcohol and extreme emotional arousal’ during the incident could have caused amnesia.
Bridger insisted her husband would have been aware that the dogs had come from a charity which had a rule to take back any rehomed dogs if people couldn’t cope with them.
Her older brother, Graham Skelton, 72, gave evidence, describing her as ‘a very much-loved younger sister’ and ‘a very loyal wife to Keith regardless’, with many long-term friends who ‘care and love her dearly’.
Lloyd Jones, a friend of Bridger’s for 30 years, said in a statement she was ‘a woman of exceptional character with unwavering love for her daughters’ who had worked tirelessly to support her family and had cared for elderly neighbours.
Mr Bridger admitted in the witness box that he had not told his wife that the dogs had been euthanised but insisted he believed she already knew that he had done so after he unsuccessfully tried to rehome them.
He described her becoming ‘almost hysterical’ when he told her what had happened on the driveway outside his new home.
Mr Bridger, pictured with a different dog, said he had to act as he was unable to keep the dachshunds at the single-bedroom flat he had moved to after the separation
‘She was screaming “You killed my dogs, you killed my dogs”. The next thing I knew the knife went in me.’
Mr Bridger, whose injuries included a punctured lung and who was also bitten by his wife repeatedly, said it had taken all his strength to hold her off as neighbours emerged and prised the knife from her hands.
Bridger will be sentenced on March 20.