Natasha Gardener jailed for stabbing ex

Natasha Gardener had been texting her former boyfriend of four years about childcare arrangements when he told her he was going to turn his phone off.

But Gardener, 36, flew into a rage when she noticed he had tagged his new partner in a social media post and went to his flat in Colchester.

She began banging on the door and when nobody let her in she smashed through the door and attempted to attack the other woman.

Her former partner restrained her momentarily before she broke free and yanked the woman’s hair.

The trio continued to struggle until Gardener was pushed over the sofa in the lounge, and the other woman fled out of the flat.

Gardener then refused to leave until she was given drugs and made a beeline for a metal tin in the kitchen.

Another struggle began, and she plunged a kitchen knife from the counter into the man’s stomach.

They tried to stem the bleeding with an apron and a neighbour who had heard the commotion in the early hours called the emergency services.

Police arrived and found the victim - who is in his 40s - with his intestines protruding from the wound.

He was taken to hospital and needed 18 staples to close the cut.

Gardener, of Brooklands, Colchester, was due to stand trial for wounding with intent but eventually admitted lesser charges of wounding without intent and assault on the first day of a scheduled trial.

Barry Gilberd, mitigating at Ipswich Crown Court said Gardener was fragile and her state was made worse by occasional cocaine use.

He described the attack last December as violent but unplanned and said the use of the knife was off-the-cuff.

Judge Rupert Overbury jailed Gardener for two-and-half-years.

He said: “The victim does not bear any responsibility for what you did.

“You lashed out in a violent way towards him and he did his best to protect himself and his partner.

“You, in a state of rage, picked up the knife and during the course of the struggled you plunged it into his stomach.”