Child ‘woken up by mum’s screams as dad stabbed her to death in bed’

A top public school hockey coach murdered his wife in front of their young son, a court heard.

Mohamed Samak, 43, is accused of stabbing 49-year-old interior designer Joanne Samak to death at their home in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire, on July 1 last year.

Jurors at Worcester Crown Court were told neighbours heard a woman screaming and a child crying that night. They also heard a transcript of Samak’s 999 call made at 4.09am, I which he tells the operator he wants the police, adding: ‘I’m in some trouble.’

He says: ‘Please, I need to help my wife.’ When the call handler asks about her, he adds: ‘She’s got a knife in her tummy.’

Samak denies murder, claiming Joanne inflicted the fatal wounds herself.

In his call to emergency services, he described having gone to the toilet, looked inside his wife’s bedroom, where she slept alone, and seen her slumped half out of the bed.

He said he turned her over and saw blood before noticing the blade and commencing CPR while waiting for paramedics to arrive.

But prosecutor Matthew Brook KC told jurors Samak has changed his story, having previously told police he saw Joanne stabbing herself.

The court was told the couple’s young son also described seeing an altercation between his parents.

He was interviewed by specially trained officers and built a Lego replica of his mother’s bedroom where he had been sleeping that night.

Mr Brook said: ‘He said when he was in mummy’s room, daddy picked mummy up to see what was in her hands.

‘When daddy picked mummy up, he had wrapped his arms around her tummy.

‘He had been woken up by mummy shouting “put me down”.’

Mr Brooks continued: ‘The defendant says she inflicted these stab wounds on herself.

‘The prosecution says that we are sure that the defendant stabbed his wife and murdered her.’

Samak was head coach of the Welsh under-18s boys’ and girls’ hockey and previously head of boys’ hockey at Malvern College, which costs up to £57,285-a-year to attend.

The couple met in 2011 when Mrs Samak went to Egypt on holiday and he was in charge of sports and activities provision for guests at her hotel.

The trial continues.