UPSET with her husband whom she considered a bully, a woman stabbed him in the neck with a kitchen knife as he lay asleep and naked in bed at their Witley home, Guildford Crown Courst was told last week.

After a four-day trial, Yvonne Cozens (35), now of Bridge Road, Haslemere, was found guilty of unlawfully wounding her husband, Clive, in November last year.

Mrs Cozens, who had denied the offence saying it was an accident which happened during a scuffle, was remanded for reports and will be sentenced on June 18.

On Friday, November 3 last year and into the early hours of the following day, Mr Cozens was in bed, naked and asleep, Constance Briscoe, prosecuting, told the court.

Mrs Cozens went up to the bedroom and stabbed him in the neck with a knife.

Mr Cozens had been married to his wife for three years and they had known each other for some six years. Each of them had a child by former relationships and they all lived in the family home in Sunny Hill, Witley, for about three years.

It had been a stormy relationship. Mr Cozens moved out of the home on a number of occasions. Both of them enjoyed drink.

On November 3, Mr Cozens went to work and while there he received a phone call from his wife on a mobile 'phone saying she had an idea about setting up a business and she wanted to talk it through with him. He said he would talk it through with her when he got home from work.

When he got home from work at about 7-30pm he spoke to his wife about a business plan but he could see that she had been drinking and thought she was drunk.

During the course of the discussion about the business plan, Mr Cozens asked her husband to go to the local pub so she could discuss things with him. They left home at about 8 pm and returned at about 9-45 pm. He had given his wife a number of telephone numbers of people who he said were people who would contact her about the business plan.

Mr Cozens then went up to bed. He got undressed and within minutes was asleep. The next thing he remembered was waking up and feeling a warm feeling and intense pain to the left had side of his neck.

"He had good reason for that because his wife had stabbed him in the neck," Miss Briscoe told the court.

"As he stood up, blood was streaming down his chest and he noticed his wife was standing next to him with a large kitchen knife in her hand."

He ran out of the home and went to his next-door neighbour's. His next recollection was being carried into an ambulance and being taken to hospital.

There he was found to have a cut 4cms below the ear which was one inch in length and two inches in depth.

Mrs Cozens made her way to a friend's house where she told her neighbour: "I have stabbed him. I have stabbed him in the neck." At the time she was holding a large kitchen knife.

The police arrived and Mrs Cozens was arrested. An 8" kitchen knife with a wooden handle was recovered. She told police: "I have stabbed him but there is no blood on the knife."

When interviewed, she said she had had a few bottles of beer on the day.

She was in control of herself and during the course of the day she got upset with her stepson and later with her husband because he had not done something which she had wanted him to do.

She said she felt her husband had demeaned her and she did not like that at all. She had got a kitchen knife and gone to the bedroom and couldn't remember what had happened after that.

Denying the offence in evidence, Mrs Cozens admitted going to the bedroom with the knife because she was upset with her husband who was a bully. But she had only taken the knife with the intention of frightening him.

A scuffle had taken place between them during which the blade of the knife had accidentally gone into his neck. She never intentionally meant to hurt him in that way.