73-Year-Old Man Stabs Younger Wife 8 Times For Having An Affair

A 73-year-old councillor stabbed his wife eight times with a seven-inch kitchen knife after discovering she was having an affair with the postman, a court heard.

Joseph O’Riordan was sitting on Polegate Town Council in East Sussex when he grew suspicious his wife, Amanda, 47, was having an alleged affair and hired a private investigator to follow her.

The couple had been married for ten years when O’Riordan, who was also the president of his local Royal British Legion and had attended the Queen’s garden party in 2013 for his work on the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, discovered his wife was in a relationship with a man named in court as Nicholas Gunn.

Mr Gunn had been the postman in the couple’s neighbourhood before moving away from the area.

After becoming suspicious of Mrs O’Riordan, a jealous O’Riordan used a GPS tracking device to monitor her car journeys and hired a private investigator to follow her.

On the day of the attack, in October last year, the couple were at Mrs O’Riordan’s mother’s house to help with the shopping when the councillor received a call, believed to be from Mr Gunn.

Giving evidence in a pre-recorded interview, Mrs O’Riordan said: ‘After the phone call he came back into the room and I could see a shift in his mood.

Joseph and Amanda

‘We left my mother’s to get some food at KFC, and in the car Joe said to me, “you can probably tell there is something wrong”.

‘He then told me he had hired a private investigator and told me I had lied to him about previous phone calls I had received.’

On the journey home Mrs O’Riordan tried to get out of the car, but was dragged back in and held down by her husband so she could not escape.

When they got home she went straight to the bedroom to dump her handbag and O’Riordan asked why she had not removed her coat.

She replied: ‘I'm not sure if I am going to stay here, I might go back to mum’s for a cup of coffee.’

O’Riordan then left the room before returning with the seven inch knife and allegedly cried out: ‘You have made me do this. This is all your fault.’

He stabbed his wife violently before calling her an ambulance and admitting to the call handler what he had done.

The court heard an audio clip of the 999 phone call in which O’Riordan can be heard saying: ‘My wife’s been stabbed in the stomach. She’s bleeding really badly, she could be dying.

‘It was me who stabbed her. She’s lost quite a lot of blood. I want to look after her, it’s me who’s done this to her.’

In the tape Mrs O’Riordan can be heard groaning in pain in the background before sirens sound and police arrive.

She suffered life-threatening injuries including a collapsed lung in the vicious attack.

Dale Sullivan, prosecuting, said: ‘In the evening of that night, Joseph O’Riordan went from his bedroom to the kitchen and selected a knife before returning to the bedroom to stab his wife multiple times. ‘The issue in this case is a narrow one, but it is simply this-on October 22 did Joseph intend to kill Amanda?’.

Sussex police constable Steven Wilson said: ‘Mr O’Riordan’s demeanor struck me as unusual under the circumstances.

‘He was compliant and co-operative and had a distinctive bored air about him.’

O’Riordan pleaded guilty to wounding with intent but denied a charge of attempted murder.

The trial continues.