A YOUNG mother who stabbed her bullying boyfriend after years of abuse has walked free from court after a judge told her he could understand why she armed herself.

Natalie Leeming plunged the potato knife into Christopher Gill’s back after the couple argued when he turned up uninvited at a party where he was unwelcome.

Leeming was also asked to leave the gathering because Mr Gill was causing trouble, and picked up the small knife because she feared being outside alone with her partner.

Teesside Crown Court heard yesterday that after she stuck the blade in 19-year-old Mr Gill, she turned “as white as a ghost”, curled up in a ball on the ground and started to cry.

Paul Cleasby, prosecuting, said Mr Gill’s wound was stitched in hospital, but he refused to stay, and released himself into the custody of police to be questioned for assaulting Leeming.

In an interview following her arrest in Danby Road, Stockton, in the early hours of October 17 last year, Leeming, 20, told police: “I don’t regret it. He deserved it.”

She said Mr Gill had kicked her in the stomach and side, that she spotted the knife as she was leaving the house, and thought she would have to use it if he came near her.

The court heard that Mr Gill had 58 convictions on his record – including five for violence – and had served time in prison for beating up Leeming and damaging her property.

The couple have one child and Leeming is expecting their second in March, but they are no longer together, Duncan McReddie, mitigating, told the court.

Judge Peter Bowers imposed a 40-week jail sentence, suspended for 18 months, after Leeming admitted unlawful wounding and possessing an offensive weapon.

He told her: “I think you understand that I can’t condone the use of the knife. There are very few circumstances in which using a knife amounts to self-defence.

“But what I can understand is that you felt at the end of your tether. I can understand why you felt you needed some sort of protection.”

Mr McReddie told the court: “Given the extensive, prolonged and violent nature of Mr Gill’s approach to Natalie Leeming, her reaction is perhaps understandable.”

Leeming, formerly of Danby Road, but now living in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, was also ordered to undergo supervision and attend ten sessions of employment training.