A YOUNG woman broke down in tears in a police station when she learned she had fatally stabbed her father following a violent row.

Jessica Breeze plunged a knife into Colin Brady’s back after he attacked her and her mother in the Middlesbrough home last summer.

The 20-year-old could be heard sobbing as CCTV footage of her in the custody suite was shown to jurors at Teesside Crown Court.

As officers broke the news to her, the distraught nursery worker was heard to say: “I didn’t mean to do it; I would kill myself if I did. He was trying to kill my mum, so what was I supposed to do.”

A sobbing Breeze told officers that she would probably kill herself if they placed her in custody.

During police interview Breeze admitted being responsible for her father’s death but denied that she had murdered him.

She said: “I thought he was going to stab her so I took it (a knife) off him and hit him with it – I didn’t mean to stab him.”

She told detectives that both her and her mother had been victims of Mr Brady’s domestic abuse over the years and on the night of the fatal stabbing he had launched into a violent attack on his daughter when he punched and slapped about the head.

Earlier the trial heard how Mr Brady suffered a fatal injury after Breeze, then 19, plunged the knife into his back, puncturing his lung and slicing part of a rib.

Last week, the jury heard that the row erupted after the defendant accused her father’s sister of trying to get money off her and he discovered that she was in a relationship.

Mr Brady was taken to the nearby James Cook University Hospital but was pronounced dead just before midnight.

A post-mortem examination revealed that the six-inch knife had been plunged into his back up to the hilt, just below his left shoulder.

The trial of Breeze, of Central Mews, Middlesbrough, continues.