49-year-old David Clark, an estate agent is now standing trial for reportedly killing his South African wife, after a lesbian affair which he claimed will make her ‘nearly always’ belittle the size of his penis and make him feel like he ‘wasn’t even a man’.
The suspect stabbed his South African wife Melanie, 44 in the chest before dialling 999 and admitting killing her. Clark who also gave evidence for the first time at Birmingham Crown Court of Bromsgrove, told jurors his wife’s taunts made him feel ‘worthless, inadequate and sad’.
He claimed she would threaten to headbutt him and ‘bust his nose’ and would comment on the size of his penis ‘almost every night. Clark added that he became emotional and had to be handed tissues when describing one incident, before they were married, involving the ‘particular’ way he had organised his work shirts by colour.
He said today: ‘The one thing I did remember, was just my work shirts were in order, all neat.’
Breaking down, he continued: ‘She mixed them all up.
‘She would change things, on purpose, move my stuff so I couldn’t find it. She didn’t really care.’
Describing her ‘taunting’ behaviour, he added: ‘She’d call me names, taunt me and stuff.
‘She’d get right up to me, to my face, and she would like to say ‘I’m going to headbutt you, bust your nose’. She was just angry.’
Asked how she would make him feel, he replied: ‘Like I wasn’t worth it – like I wasn’t a man.’
The arraigned suspect also told the court that his wife had battled with an alcohol problem since 2015 and was ‘not pleasant to be around’ when drinking.
He said: ‘It never stopped. It was almost every night.’
Jurors also heard how the wife of one of Mrs Clark’s former work colleagues emailed him in February 2016, claiming Melanie had broken up their marriage after having an on-off affair with her husband.
Daily Mail reported that Clark told the court that when confronted, his wife had ‘denied everything’.
Mr Clark said: ‘At first I did not believe it. But I came to believe that Melanie had had an affair with the man.
‘We agreed that we would tell the other before sleeping around before we were married.
‘I confronted her. All I wanted was the truth. I wasn’t horrible or nasty to her. I did not raise my voice. I just wanted the truth.
‘I still love Melanie and I have forgiven her.
‘After I moved back in with Melanie following the split, she was suspicious of me whatever I did.’
He said: ‘I used the term ‘you can’t cry over spilt milk’. I still loved her, and I’d forgiven her.’
Jurors previously heard prosecutors allege that Clark tried to kill himself with gas and even begged police officers to kill him after his wife died.
The day of her death was also his birthday – eight minutes into his 49th year, the court was told. Mrs Clark was found lying in the master bedroom, where she had been sleeping without her husbands for a couple of months. A knife was found near her body, the trial heard.
