A MAN charged with murdering an elderly retired school teacher claimed the woman was stabbed in a struggle in which she had been trying to stop him committing suicide, Belfast Crown Court heard yesterday.
However, Mr John Creaney QC, prosecuting, rejected Mr Richard James Close's "glib account" of how Mrs Daphne Taylor met her death.
Instead Mr Creaney said that Mr Close (24), from Ballymaconnel Road, Bangor, attacked Mrs Taylor (59) on a lonely coastal path because she was "vulnerable and alone".
The trial, which is expected to last a week, continues today.