Woman denies stamping husband to death

A WOMAN has gone on trial accused of murdering her former paramedic husband at their Hebridean island home.

Sandra Bruce is alleged to have scratched, kicked, stamped and jumped on her partner Norman – and inflicted “blunt force” injuries on him.

She is accused of carrying out the fatal attack at the couple’s home in the Breakish area of Skye.

Bruce, 61, now living at Kilbarchan in Renfrewshire, denies murdering her 64-year-old husband and has lodged a special defence of self defence. At the High Court in Glasgow yesterday, Mr Bruce’s son Andrew, pictured, claimed she attacked him during a visit to Skye to see his dad in the 1990s. Bruce was the first witness yesterday at the High Court in Glasgow.

The jury heard that Norman Bruce had lived with his family at Kilmarnock in Ayrshire. He later left to eventually set-up home with Sandra Bruce on Skye.

Advocate depute Andrew Brown, prosecuting, asked Mr Bruce jun what his “feelings” at that time were towards Bruce.

Mr Bruce, a police

officer with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, said: “I was upset because this was who my dad had left my mum for. I regarded her with suspicion.”

The court heard that Mr Bruce – then a teenager – wrote a letter to his father in which he claimed he felt his new partner was not a “good influence”.

Mr Bruce, now aged 37, and his sister went to visit their father in the early to mid-1990s. It was during this stay that Bruce appeared “angry” about what was in the letter.

Mr Bruce, who lives in West Lothian, told the court: “I felt quite threatened. I appealed tomy dad that I wanted to go home.”

Mr Bruce told the court he tried to phone his own mother before eventually going to bed despite feeling “anxious”.

He told the court that the door then “burst open” and Bruce “jumped” on him before putting her hands around his neck.

He told the court: “I remember her shouting. I was shocked at how sudden the attack was.”

The trial heard Bruce was soon pulled away, but that she still appeared “angry”.

Mr Bruce said that was the last time he visited his father on Skye.

He told the court that the last occasion he saw him was in the summer of 2013 when he travelled to the mainland to visit his family.

Mr Bruce also said that when he learned about his dad’s death in February last year, police initially told him it was “unexplained”.

Bruce’s counsel, Brian McConnachie QC, suggested to Mr Bruce that he had been “pre-disposed” not to like her.

Mr Mc Connachie added: “She had taken your dad away?” Mr Bruce replied: “Yes.” Bruce, who also uses the names Fraser and Anderson, also denies assaulting her husband at the same property on Skye between 1992 and 1995, and again between 1991 and 2014.

Mr Brucesen served with the ambulance service on Skye for two decades, working in accident and emergency and then on patient transport vehicles.

After retiring from the service, he worked at the former Hilton care home at Broadford and then at the Co-op in Kyle.

The trial, before judge Lord Armstrong, continues.

“I was upset because this was who my dad left my mum for”

ON TRIAL: Sandra Bruce has lodged a special defence of self defence