Ex-model loses conviction appeal

Aug 1 2007 by Cathy Gordon, Liverpool Daily Post

A FORMER glamour model who stabbed her boyfriend to death in a crowded restaurant yesterday lost her appeal against her conviction.

Three Court of Appeal judges, who heard at a recent hearing a claim that Stephanie Williams was suffering from "battered women's syndrome" at the time of the killing, declared her murder conviction safe.

The mother-of-one was found guilty of murder by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court in October 2002. Williams, now 35, formerly of Roseside Drive, Netherley, Merseyside, was not present for the announcement by Lord Justice Auld, Mr Justice Cresswell and Sir Michael Wright.

Bank worker Williams stabbed John Lamont following arow, plunging a steak knife into his heart. Mr Lamont, 22, collapsed following the attack in the Chapel Brook restaurant in Huyton, Liverpool, on February 19, 2002, and died shortly after arriving at Whiston Hospital.

Joel Bennathan QC told the judges at a hearing last week that the grounds of appeal "have at their heart the history of, we say, many threats of violence by the deceased". He said there was fresh evidence "to the effect that at the time of both the trial and the killing, the appellant was suffering from battered women's syndrome".

Such a finding, he argued, "would have been highly relevant to the jury's deliberations, primarily when considering provocation and diminished responsibility".

Mr Bennathan said that because of the new material, Williams now had the arguable defence of diminished responsibility open to her. But the judges yesterday rejected the psychiatric evidence called on her behalf.

Lord Justice Auld said that even with evidence of Mr Lamont's abusive behaviour towards her, it was hard to see how Williams "could have perceived herself in such danger in the restaurant that she had to stab him with the knife".