Jilted teacher wearing wig stabbed lover’s wife with knife hidden in bouquet of flowers
A lovelorn teacher wearing a red wig, a COVID mask and sunglasses showed up at her ex-lover’s home and repeatedly stabbed his wife with a carving knife she had stashed inside a bouquet of flowers, police in Britain said.
Clare Bailey, 44, was sentenced to 22 years and four months in prison Friday for what has been described as a “horrific” and unprovoked attack on her former paramour’s 43-year-old wife at her home in North Yorkshire last June.
Bailey, a school teacher from Dudley in West Midlands, had pleaded guilty to attempted murder in the stabbing, which sent the victim to the hospital for more than a month.
According to the North Yorkshire Police Department, just before 5 p.m. June 23, 2022, Bailey showed up at the home of her romantic rival in the town of Harrogate wearing a surgical mask and a bright red wig, and holding a bunch of flowers.
“Hidden behind the flowers was a large carving knife,” police said in a statement.
When the victim, a 43-year-old married mom whom police referred to as Emma, opened the door to Bailey, Bailey lunged at the woman, repeatedly stabbing and slashing her in the neck, chest, stomach and arms.
North Yorkshire cops said Emma did not know Bailey, but an investigation has revealed that the 44-year-old teacher previously had an extramarital affair with Emma’s husband, which had ended several months earlier, “something which Bailey had struggled to accept,” they said.
On the morning of the stabbing, Bailey called in sick at work and made the trip from Dudley to Harrogate. Before showing up at her rival’s home, she stopped at a Sainsbury’s grocery store to buy flowers to disguise the knife.
Emma said in an emotional videotaped police interview that she had a day off from work that day and was sitting at home with her 14-year-old daughter when she heard the doorbell ring and saw a masked stranger standing outside with flowers.
“I wasn’t actually gonna answer it, and I still don’t know why I did,” Emma recalled, sitting in a wheelchair.
The victim said the uninvited guest standing on her doorstep told her the flowers were for her.
“And I said, ‘Sorry?’ and she said, ‘These are for you,'” the stabbing survivor said. “And when she said it a second time, I noticed that there was a knife handle behind the flowers she was holding. So I said, ‘No, I don’t want them, thank you,’ and tried to shut the door, and she forced her way in.”
Emma screamed for help, and her 14-year-old daughter came running downstairs and tried to intervene, before Bailey proceeded to stab and slash the mom in front of the teen.
“The only other thing I remember is when she was behind me and she was trying to cut my throat,” Emma told police through sobs.
The victim said she knew that she would die if she did not fight back, so she grabbed Bailey’s knife.
Later when help arrived, Emma said she recalled being carried out by paramedics and thinking she was dying.
By then, the attacker had fled on foot, then got back in her car and drove home. She was arrested by police two days later.
Meanwhile, Emma required surgery after suffering a perforated bowel. She also lost all feeling in one leg and was left covered in painful scars on her chest, arms and hands.
In a statement released after Bailey’s sentencing, Emma said she was in “pain every day” and suffering from flashbacks and nightmares about the savage attack.
“I’ve lost all my independence, I couldn’t go back to work,” she added in her impact statement. “I have just lost my whole life really, I need help with everything I do.”
Speaking of her young daughter, who witnessed the stabbing and tried to stop it, Emma said, “She will always be my little hero. I honestly don’t think I would still be here if she hadn’t been home that day.”
Senior Investigating Officer Jonathan Sygrove commended Emma for her bravery and said he was hopeful that Bailey’s sentencing will offer her some closure.
“This was a horrific attack on an innocent and blameless lady who is now unable to feel safe in her own home, work, or spend time independently with her children, as a result,” he said. “All she did was open the front door to her home.”
