Yardley Wood woman jailed for killing love rival
LOVE triangle killer Karla Biddle was today starting a seven-year jail sentence for the manslaughter of her rival who she stabbed to death at the home of their two-timing boyfriend.
A jury at Warwick Crown Court found her not guilty of murdering 30-year-old Miss Bradshaw.
But by a majority of ten to two the jury found her guilty of an alternative offence of manslaughter.
The jury foreman indicated they had reached their conclusion on that charge on the basis that Biddle had been acting under provocation from Miss Bradshaw.
Judge Richard Griffith-Jones said that meant Biddle had to be sentenced on the basis that she did not take the knife with her when she went to Ashley Watson’s home, but that Miss Bradshaw had produced it in the hallway.
Biddle, aged 32, of Aldbury Road, Yardley Wood, had denied murdering Miss Bradshaw, of Clarence Road, Mere Green, Sutton Coldfield, during the incident on May 14 last year.
Biddle’s boyfriend, Ashley Watson, was also in a relationship with Miss Bradshaw, and early that morning, the day she considered their anniversary, Biddle went to his home in Berkeley Road, Solihull, where Emma had spent the night.
Prosecuting, Mark Wall QC, alleged she went in armed with a kitchen knife and stabbed Emma twice in the abdomen. A struggle between them then carried on in the street, before Biddle left and Miss Bradshaw went to a nearby house and then back to the road where she collapsed, and died shortly after being rushed to hospital.
