A woman accused of a Christmas Day murder in Fife has told of the moments before her partner was stabbed.
Adriana Ciurar said Samoila Stoica was assaulting her when, with a knife in her hand, she pushed him away.
The murder trial has previously heard Mr Stoica, 25, died from a single stab wound at the couples’ home in David Street, Kirkcaldy.
Accused Ciurar, 25 – who gave birth to their daughter just two days later – told the High Court in Edinburgh she was doing washing up in the kitchen on Christmas Day, 2019, when Mr Stoica grabbed her hair.
She said: “I was just so scared.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen.
“When he held my hair I was so scared I turned my back to face him and I pushed him to go away.
“I pushed with my hands. I have got the knife in my hand washing the knife.
“I don’t know how it happened.”
‘I have to live with this my whole life’
She was asked by solicitor advocate Iain Paterson if she had intended to stab him and replied: “No, no I swear on my life.
“I never wanted to. I was ready to give birth to my baby.”
Ciurar said: “I never ever wanted to do that to him.
“I am so sorry for this.”
She told the court: “I have to live with this my whole life.”
She said she would have to explain to her child what happened to her father.
She said she was shocked and put the knife in the sink.
She went to get a towel to put on his chest.
“I say, ‘Please don’t go. Stay here. I am so sorry’,” she told the court.
She said she had contacted his cousin to come to the house and to call an ambulance.
Previous violence
She said she had earlier been at hospital but returned home to prepare for Christmas Day, cooking and setting the table.
Mr Stoica was not there when she came home.
She said Mr Stoica had arrived at about 1.30pm and she had asked him where he had been all night.
Romanian-born Ciurar told him she wanted to go back home after the baby was born.
She said she heard a glass fall on the floor and felt his hands grabbing her hair.
Ciurar said they had previously rowed and on one occasion at Mr Stoica’s brother’s home in Dublin he had punched her in the face.
Wedding singer Rebus Stoica previously told the trial he saw Ciurar assault his brother around this time.
Arrival in Kirkcaldy
Her brother took her to Northern Ireland and Mr Stoica moved to Scotland.
She said Mr Stoica contacted her and bought her a ticket to join him.
She said: “I was pregnant and I wanted the relationship to work.
“I wanted my daughter to have a father.”
Ciurar said she thought it was in October 2019 they had rented a flat in Kirkcaldy.
She denies murdering Mr Stoica on Christmas Day 2019 at 68A David Street, Kirkcaldy, by stabbing him on the body with a knife.
She was earlier acquitted of a further charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The court heard her daughter was born on December 27 in 2019.
The trial before Lord Boyd of Duncansby continues.
