A former top public school hockey coach accused of murdering his wife tearfully told police he found her stabbing herself while screaming ‘let me do it’, a court has heard.
Mohammed Samak, 42, who previously worked for Malvern College, is accused of stabbing interior designer Joanne, 49, after the couple ‘drifted apart’ and he struggled to find work.
But the hockey international, who had represented Egypt and was a member of the England over-40s squad, told police he found his wife inflicting the injuries to herself at their home in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire, in the early hours of July 1 last year.
He denies murdering her.
Jurors at Worcester Crown Court were led through transcripts of a police interview which took place at 2pm on July 2, in which Samak gave his version of events.
Through tears, he told officers he had been lying in bed when he became aware of his wife in a state of distress in the bathroom.
He said: ‘Jo was screaming, I turned and I could see she was by the bathroom door, I saw she had got a knife in her hand, she’s trying to stab herself.
‘I tried to help and she pushed me and she went to the room and she kept on stabbing herself and by the time she went to the bed she was bleeding.
‘I tried to help, I tried to drag her from the room, I was scared, I was terrified, by what I had witnessed, I couldn’t do anything.’
He told officers that he had initially asked his wife ‘are you ok?’ when he saw her with the knife, but she pushed him aside and said ‘leave me alone, I don’t need your help’.
Samak claims his wife stabbed herself in the stomach and chest after struggling with her mental health and alcohol, drinking two bottles of wine four times a week.
In his interview with police on July 2, Samak claimed his wife had begun attacking herself at around 3am, when he was sleeping.
‘I tried to move her to see if she could respond, but she couldn’t,’ he told officers.
‘I was sitting down, running around, I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know whether to call her mum – I didn’t really know what to do so I cried. I couldn’t believe it.
‘I struggled to breathe, I couldn’t really think.’
The court heard that as Samak described how Jo allegedly stabbed herself he was sitting on the edge of the interview table, hunched slightly forward, to demonstrate the manner in which he said she inflicted the injuries.
The following day, on July 3, he provided a similar account to police, saying: ‘She was stabbing herself. She fell into the room next to the toilet, but she was swinging her arms around in a way that was a little bit out of control, but then she turned away and she stabbed herself.
‘She was saying ‘I don’t need help’ and ‘let me do it’.’
But prosecutors said he was instead seeking to characterise his wife as ‘an out-of-control alcoholic in order to bolster his account that Joanne took her own life’.
Jurors have been told he was experiencing financial difficulties and ‘had feelings’ for a former female acquaintance with whom he had reconnected.
Samak waited for more than an hour before calling 999 and then ‘did nothing’ to help his dying wife before telling a ‘pack of lies’ about what had happened, prosecutors alleged.
He was head coach of the Welsh under-18s boys and girls hockey and previously head of boys’ hockey at Malvern College, which costs up to £57,285 a year to attend.
The court heard the couple met in 2011 when Mrs Samak went to Egypt on holiday and he was in charge of sports and activities provision for guests at her hotel.
They married in the country three years later, ‘surprising’ her mother by sending a picture of them holding their wedding certificate, which was written in Arabic, and Samak moved to the UK at the end of 2014.
He then secured work at Malvern College before later moving on to Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, the court heard.
Samak went on to coach for Hockey Wales, jurors were told, but work was ‘sporadic’ and Mrs Samak, who set up a new design firm with colleagues after they were made redundant, was the ‘main breadwinner’.
Jurors were previously told the couple slept in separate beds and during her evidence, Mrs Samak’s mother, Penelope Vale, told the court Samak ‘didn’t think it was right that they hadn’t slept together for some time’.
She said she had ‘no concerns’ about her daughter’s alcohol consumption. But asked by Mr Sandhu if Samak approved of his wife drinking, Ms Vale replied: ‘Not really…he would talk about it. He didn’t like her drinking alcohol.’
Samak claimed to police he was unaware of the extent of her injuries.
He said: ‘After that I pulled her out of her room in the bigger space, but when I pulled her out in the bigger space I just carried on crying and just talking to her. I saw the blood on her chest but I didn’t really see…the solicitor mentioned to me six times.
‘I didn’t really see six stabs on her, only saw the blood and I saw the knife. I was aware that she was trying to do and I didn’t really know.
‘I didn’t see any sign of blood, I just was focusing on her on the ground and the situation that she’s got and I’m just terrified.’
The trial continues.